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LETTERS 

{July 4, i8g4) 
{July 4, iSgs) 



Gen'l JOHN COCHRANE, 



PRESIDENT 



c 



INCINNATI OOCIETY 



S 



OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 



TH 



E NEW YORK CINCINNATI. 




Revised, Corrected axd Enlarged. 



LETTERS 

{July 4, 1894) 
{July 4, 189s) 



Genl JOHN COCHRANE, 



PRESIDENT 



Cincinnati Society 



OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 



THE NEW YORK CINCINNATI 




Revised, Corrected and Enlarged. 



CONTEXTS 



Page 
Preface, ......... 3 

I. No Society of the Cincinnati in France, . 7 

II. Origin and Nature of the Institution of 

the Cincinnati Society, .... 44 

III. Parallel between the States of the Old 

Confederacy and the State Societies 

of the Cincinnati, ..... 46 

IV. The State Societies of the Cincinnati — 

THE EXTENT OF THEIR POWER, 50 

V. The joint jurisdiction of the General 

Meeting and the State Societies, of 
the Principles, Maxims and General 
Rules of the Society, .... 54 

The Supervisory Office of the Gen- 
eral Meeting, ...... 54 

VI. Virtual ultimate control by the State 

Societies, 56 

VII. Confirmative annals of the General 

Meeting, 57 

VIII. Delinquent State Societies, . . -57 

IX. The Meeting of the Cincinnati in France 

NOT AUTHENTIC — ADDITIONAL PROOFS, . 58 

X. The Circular of the Rhode Island Society, 66 

XI. The General Meeting, .... 89 

XII. Report to the New York Society of the 

Cincinnati by Gen'l Cochrane for the 
Committee, Messrs. Wm. Linn Keese, 
Talbot Olyphant and John Cochrane, 
adopted, 1890, ...... 98 



Kf U 



PREFACE 



Discrepancies between the results of early researches 
and those of late investigation, together with corrobo- 
rative proofs of anterior positions, were the occasion of 
Addenda to the Letters previously addressed to the 
Cincinnati of New York. The redress of those errors 
and the incorporation of the Addenda at their appro- 
priate places, is the purpose of this revision. 

To cursory as well as to official confusion of the 
terms "The General Society" and "The General 
Meeting," is traceable the source of an error of first 
magnitude in the construction of the " Institution " on 
which the Society rests. They are essentially two 
different bodies — the one, that of the one Society of 
the Cincinnati in its primary capacity of distinct State 
Organizations, sovereign and independent, with limited 
joint functions — the other, a representative body dele- 
gated by the General Society to represent it at 
intermittent periods, with joint powers definitively 
prescribed and functions limited to advice. (Note *.) 

Instead of the right accorded to the State Societies, 
to judge of the qualifications required by the " Insti- 
tution," of those proposed for membership, the substi- 
tution by most of them of qualifications of their own 
device, is a challenge of defiance to the vital principle 
of the Society, and a license of judgment at once 
hostile to the " Institution," and destructive of the dis- 
tinction between the Cincinnati of the Revolution, ami 
the novel organizations of recent extraction from it. 
(Note §.) 

The power to expel a member of the Society, con- 
ferred on th.e Societies of the States, is doubtless limited 
to those residing within their respective local jurisdic- 
tions. (Note %.) 

It is a generally prevalent, though a natural error, 
to suppose that the primogenitive right of membership 

Note *. See pages 48-79-80 ; note * page 81. 
Note §. See page 52 and its note *. 
Note X- See pages 26-27-52 and its note 4. 



in the Society, is offensive to the principles of democ- 
racy. The domain of neither encroaches on the other. 
It were unreasonable to stigmatize a Society instituted 
" to perpetuate the mutual friendships" of its Founders 
with antagonism to a polity of State ; and the appoint- 
ment by the ancestral Cincinnati of their eldest male 
posterity, hereditary tributaries to their memory and 
depositaries in succession of their right, was no less 
their prerogative, than if they had selected for the 
pious office, those only of them rejoicing in cane colored 
beards, or rubescent in heads of red hair. 

Departure from the directions of the " Institution " 
forfeits the difference which discriminates between the 
Society of the Cincinnati and the Sons of the Revolu- 
tion — this, the self appointed factor of remembrance — 
that, its testamentary executor, constituted by the Offi- 
cers of the Army of the Revolution, its repository forever. 

The significance of the power of dissent in any one 
State Society, consisting of its right to veto any pro- 
posed change in the principles, maxims or general rules 
of the " Institution," is apt either to be overlooked or 
misunderstood. In the compact between the thirteen 
States under the Articles of Confederation, each State 
was invested with a similar power. Though neither in the 
Articles of Confederation, nor in the " Institution " of 
the Cincinnati, is the power expressed, yet the universal 
law governs both, that the terms of a compact cannot 
be varied, any one of the parties to it dissenting. Thus 
the repeated dissent of single States, from a change in 
the terms of the Articles, caused its defeat : and the 
recognition by the Founders that, as the unanimous 
assent of the thirteen States under the Articles of 
Confederation on which the " Institution " of the Cincin- 
nati was modeled, was required to alter them, so also a 
unanimous assent of the thirteen State Societies was 
required to effect a change in the " Institution," is their 
registered admission that the veto power of each State 
Society is its inalienable and irreversible right under the 
" Institution," signed in mutual compact by them all. 
(Note ".) 

Note*. See note S, page 48. 



5 

That a Society of the Cincinnati ever existed in 
France — that the appointment of honorary members 
by the General Meeting is authorized ; and that the 
State Societies are its financial servitors, are myths 
irrevocably consigned to the Limbo of exploded errors. 
(Note *.) 

The supposition is groundless that attributes to the 
General Meeting the power of reviving a State Society. 
The State Societies never die. Their life is perpetual ; 
coordinate and concurrent with genealogical lines : the 
life of the General Meeting is vicarious and intermit- 
tent ; delegated and dependent on the will of the State 
Societies. In the State Societies alone exists para- 
mount, the Society of the Cincinnati. Of inherent 
vitality, they are self existent. Through them, the 
perennial life of the General Society reaches in in- 
defeasible entail, the remotest degree of hereditary 
succession. The General Meeting is the product of 
their breath. Their life-giving power to it, stifles its 
assumption to resurrect them. If excluded from its 
deliberations, still their separate negative would frus- 
trate any change in the " Institution," it attempts; and 
though by the withdrawal of their triennial breath, its 
temporary suspension as heretofore, or its final ex- 
tinction would ensue, yet in the State Societies, would 
the Society of the Cincinnati live on forever. (Note §.) 

With this prefatory explanation, these Letters are 
again offered for perusal, not in the spirit of polemical 
controversy, but as the means of instruction, where 
instruction is needed. 

The vicissitudes of the Society have been many. 
Established by the Officers of the Army of the Revo- 
lution to perpetuate the remembrance of its friendly 
associations, and of the Government it achieved, they 
appointed their eldest male posterity, the depositaries 
of their memory. Though an institution commemora- 
tive of the past, it was assailed by the clamor of popular 
prejudice as a menace to the future; and unless sus- 
tained by its members in the State Societies, it had 
been extinguished by its General Meeting. The Soci- 

Note *. Pages 7-58, note 5 pages 52-53. pages 86-87-88. 
Note §. See note 8, page 53. 



eties however in most of the thirteen States, bent to 
the storm. In the rest they maintained a precarious 
existence. In none did they perish ; but in all awaited 
within their respective spheres, the opportunity of 
revival. To their survivors, other fortunes befell. They 
sought for their segmentary life, the muster of numbers ; 
and, forsaking the Society instituted by the Founders in 
1783, for a Society instituted by their kinsmen in 1856, 
divided the testamentary duties of the eldest male issue 
of the Fathers, with an auxiliary influx of their miscel- 
laneous posterity, and became a Society of the Cincin- 
nati under " the rule of '54." (Note $.) Two of them, 
— of New York and Pennsylvania, — are loyal to the 
"Institution" that ordained them Societies; but the 
remainder, unmindful of the lesson involved in the 
Sibylline enigma of increased value in decreased bulk, 
not only have imported members of features in common 
with many of those of the modern organizations of 
Revolutionary derivation, but have abandoned to the 
private agreement of individuals the sacred duty en- 
joined unalienably upon them, of judging of the quali- 
fications of applicants for membership. Numerical 
aggrandizement has never been considered compensation 
for legitimacy, nor a traffick in birth-rights the antidote 
of decay : but the degeneracy unhappily predicable of 
both, will not fail to be confirmed, when the Cincinnati 
shall have become the shadow of a name. — J. C. 

Note §. See page 57 and its note * ; page 84. 



LETTER, 

July 4, 1SQ4 

To the Cincinnati of New York:. 
Bret hern : 

A cursory examination of the Institution of 
the Society had produced an impression that its inten- 
tion was to recognize as full members certain high 
officials of France and the officers named of her Army 
and Navy. That impression contributed to a concur- 
rence with the General Meeting of 1887, in its recog- 
nition of a Society in France, with plenary power. A 
subsequent and careful examination of the question, 
having resulted in a change of opinion, I am induced 
by the importance of the subject, to submit my reasons 
to the Cincinnati of New York. 

I. No Society of the Cincinnati in France 
Intention of the Founders. 

When the officers of the American Army, from 
the Cantonment of the Army on Hudson's River, on 
the 13th of May, 1783, announced to the world that 
" to perpetuate as well the remembrance of the sepa- 
" ration under the direction of the Supreme Govenor 
"of the Universe of the Colonies of North America 
" from the dominion of Great Britain, after a bloody 
"conflict of eight years, and their establishment as 
" free and independent States, as well as the mutual 
" friendships which have been formed under the pres- 
" sure of common danger, and in many instances 
" cemented by the blood of the parties " they did " in 
"the most solemn manner associate, constitute and 
" combine themselves into one SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 
" to endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their 
" eldest male posterity, and in failure thereof, the 
" collateral branches;" they coincidently invoked as 
the tutelar spirit of the principles of their Society, its 
endurance forever in the continuity through time, of 
a procession of the right heirs male of their bodies. 



Subsequently they declared that the " Society" they 
had founded," deeply impressed with a sense of the 
" generous assistance this country has received from 
" France, and desirous of perpetuating the friendships 
"which have -been formed and so happily subsisted 
" between the allied forces in the prosecution of the 
" war," directs " that the President-General transmit as 
"soon as maybe to each" of certain French high 
officials and to certain of the officers of the French 
Navy, and to his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau 
and the Generals and Colonels of his army " a medal 
containing the Order of the Society," and " acquaint 
" them that the Society do themselves the honor to 
" consider them as members." 

It cannot fail of observation that the language of the 
" Institution " discriminates between the " mutual friend- 
ships " of the American officers "formed under the 
"pressure of common danger" and the " friendships" 
formed between them and the French officers in " the 
" prosecution of the war;" and that a separate recog- 
nition is bestowed on each. To the first, as that of 
primary regard, they promise a perennial durability, 
when appointing to their posterity an inheritance 
of endless duration ; while to the second they present 
but a life-long possession — a distinction significant of 
the difference between members in whose lineage ex- 
clusively the Society subsists, and members to whose 
names is accorded simply the honor of a place on 
its Rolls — the difference in fine, between a structural 
membership prolific of succession, and a titular mem- 
bership of barren growth. 

The intent of the American officers may be fairly 
extracted from the words with which they direct the 
President-General to " acquaint " the French Gentlemen 
"that the Society do themselves the honor to consider 
them as members." To consider, strictly is but a pro- 
cess of deliberative thought, without executive force, 
and destitute of the power of appointment. Honorary 
Membership invariably has been understood as an 



honor reflected on the recipient : but here, the Ameri- 
can officers, with a delicate courtesy of high military 
grade, refer to themselves the distinction of their con- 
sideration of the high officials of France, and of the 
Generals and Colonels of the Army of his Excellency 
the Count de Rochambeau. 

The medal proposed in the draft by General Knox 
of the Original Institution to be transmitted to Count 
de Rochambeau, was avowedly the expression of an 
assurance to the French Officers, of " the perpetual 
" rule of the Society " to entitle them " to all the civil- 
" ities and friendships of the Society : " and when these 
words were on revisal, more euphoniously paraphrased, 
" desirous of perpetuating the friendships which have 
"been formed, and so happily subsisted between the 
" officers of the allied forces," the motive of the Society 
was as truly declared ; and the extension of its bene- 
faction from the Count de Rochambeau, to the civil and 
military representatives of France, and to the Generals 
and Colonels of the Count de Rochambeau's army, was 
but the expansion of a gratitude which culminated in 
doing " themselves the honor to consider them as 
" members." Hence, they became members of the 
Cincinnati Society, not as officers of the American Army, 
in whose virility the Society had been conceived, but 
as officers of the Army of France, endowed in token 
of " civilities and friendships," with a membership 
sterile and impotent of American heirs, in succession 
of American Officers, to whom alone the future of the 
Society was appointed. 

But inference though irresistible, and conjecture 
inevitable, must be for the present abandoned for 
recourse to the explicit evidence of the honorary 
membership of the French gentlemen, furnished by the 
Founders, embodied by themselves and recorded in 
the Institution itself. The Society of the Cincin- 
nati, whose members were to be " the officers of the 
American Army," was devised by General Knox at 
West Point, April 15, 1783. The "Proposals" for its 



IO 

establishment having first been submitted to the regi- 
ments of the respective State lines, and " an officer 
"from each" having been "appointed who, in con- 
" junction with the General Officers, should take the 
" same into consideration," were debated under the 
direction of their President and senior officer General 
the Baron von Steuben, at three separate meetings ; at 
the last of which on the 19th of June, 1783, its present 
organization was completed. The " Proposals " having 
been amended and submitted at the first of these 
meetings on the 10th of May, 1783, to a committee of 
revision, at the second of them, on the 13th of that 
month, were adopted as the " Institution " of the Society. 
The President, General Steuben, having applied by 
letter of May 20th to Major L'Enfant, an accomplished 
draughtsman and artist, then at Philadelphia, and an orig- 
inal member of the Cincinnati Society, (a) for a design 
of the medal inscribed with the emblems, by which the 
Institution prescribed the " members should be known 
and distinguished," and having received an answer of 
the 10th of June, unfavorable to the order in the form 
of a medal, and enclosing two preferable designs, recon- 
vened the constituent body, the record of which shows 
these entries. 

"Cantonment of the American Army 19th June, 
1783." At a meeting of the General Officers and the 
gentlemen delegated by the respective regiments, as a 
Convention for establishing the Society of the Cincin- 
nati held by request of the President, at which were 
present (here follow their names). 

The President having communicated the " accept- 
ance " by the Chevelier de la Luzerne "of the vote 
"respecting his Excellency" and others, a resolution 
was adopted expressive of a sense " of the honor done 
"to the Society by his becoming a member thereof." 

The President having then submitted the letter 
received from Major L'Enfant, together with the de- 
signs enclosed, (b) the letter was read from which the 
following relevant extracts are made — 

(a) Appendix A, page 29. 

(b) Appendix B, page 29. 



II 

" I send you two essays which I have made, and I 
"desire one of them may be adopted instead of the 
"medal. In one I make the eagle supporting a star 
" with thirteen points, in the centre of which is the 
" figure of the medal with its inscriptions, as well in 
" front as on the reverse. A legend might be added in 
" the claws, and go round the neck of the eagle with a 
"particular inscription, or the contour of the medal 
" transferred there. In the other, I have simply the 
" eagle supporting on its breast the figure of the medal, 
" with a legend in his claws and about the neck, which 
" passes behind and sustains the reverse. I prefer the 
" latter, as it does not resemble any other order, and 
" bears a distinct character, nor will it be expensive in 
" the execution " * * * 

* * * " So far from proposing to change the 
" oval medal into an eagle on which shall be impressed 
" the medal, I do not pretend to say medals cannot be 
" made. On the contrary, my idea is that silver medals 
" should be struck at the common expense of the Society, 
" and distributed one to each member, as an appendage to 
"a diploma of parchment, whereon it would be proper to 
"stamp the figure of the medal, the eagle or star in its 
"full dimensions and properly coloured, enjoining the 
" members to conform to it, though leaving thou at liberty, 
"provided it be at their oxvn expense, of having it made 
" of such metal, and as small as they please, without 
" altering any of the emblems. It seems to me by no 
" means proper that the HONORARY MEMBERS should 
" wear the order in the same manner as THE ORIGINAL 
" MEMBERS ; it would be necessary that they should wear 
" the medal, the star, or the eagle, round their necks, and 
" the original members, at the third button holey 

" N. B. The head and tail of the eagle should be 
" silver, or enamelled in white, the body and wings gold, 
" the medal on its breast and back enamelled in the same 
" colour as the legend ; sprigs of laurel and oak might be 
" added in the tvings enamelled in green ; the star should 
" be pointed in gold or enamelled in blue or white ; 



12 

" those who would be at the expense might instead of 
" white, have diamonds. The riband, as is customary 
" in all orders, should be watered." 

"A medal, whether round or oval, is considered, in 
" the different states of Europe, only as a reward of the 
" laborer and the artist, or as a sign of a manufacturing 
" community, or religious society ; besides, the abusive 
" custom prevailing, particularly in Germany and Italy, 
" of sending to France mountebanks, dancers and mu- 
" sicians, ornamented in this manner, renders it neces- 
" sary to distinguish this order by a form which shall 
" be peculiar to itself, &c. 

****** «a gentleman already invested 
" with any European order would be unwilling to carry 
" a medal, but if, flattered by receiving a mark of dis- 
" tinction from a respectable society, he should do it, 
" the manner of it would by no means increase the 
" value of the order. On the contrary, giving it a new 
" and particular form, will be adding a recommendation 
" to its real value, and engage those invested with it to 
" wear it in the same manner as their other military 
" orders, which is the surest means of putting it at once 
"on a footing with them." 

The record proceeds: "Resolved. That the bald 
" eagle carrying the emblems on its breast, be established 
" as the order of the Society, and that the ideas of Major 
" L'Enfant respecting it, and the manner of its beingworn 
" by the members, be adopted. That the order be of the 
" same size, and in every respect conformable to the said 
" design, which for that purpose is certified by the Baron 
" de Steuben, President of this convention, and to be 
" deposited in the archives of the Society as the original 
" from which all copies are to be made. Also that silver 
" medals, not exceeding the size of a Spanish milled dollar, 
"with the emblems as designed by Major L'Enfant, and 
" certified by the President, be given to each and every 
" member of the Society,* together with the diploma on 
"parchment , whereon shall be impressed the exact 

* The medal containing the order of the Society, given to every member, and 
referred to as having been received by the French gentlemen, in the letter of Gen'l 
Washington to the Count d'Estaing May 17th, 1783. See note b post page 24 and 
Minutes General Meeting 1887, page 19. 



13 

" figures of the order and medal as above mentioned; 
"any thing in the original institution respecting gold 
" medals, to the contrary notwithstanding." 

After thanks returned to Major L' Enfant, with a 
request that he continue his assistance, and a minute 
of routine business, the record of the Convention closes 
with these words: — "The principal objects of its ap- 
" pointment, being thus accomplished, the members of 
"this Convention think fit to dissolve the same, and it 
" is hereby dissolved accordingly." (a) f 

Here, both by language and act indelibly impressed 
by the Founders themselves upon the " Institution," is 
the infallible record of the indisputable distinction 
ordained between the Officers of the American Army 
as constituent members of the Cincinnati Society and 
the Officers of the French Army as its honorary 
members. This is not all. Having distinguished be- 
tween them, and dictated to each, as an outward sign 
of their difference, a different mode of their wearing 
the Insignia, they directed that a silver medal contain- 
ing the order of the Society, minutely described, with 
a Diploma on parchment, should be given indiscrimin- 
ately to all.* 

The possibility that the Founders by " members " 
referred to a membership of the Society without ex- 
istence at the time, or that Major L'Enfant, in distin- 
guishing their different grades, referred to a membership 
of the Society without existence when he wrote, is 
opposed to the recorded event of its birth. 

An association of persons being its essential pre- 
requisite, the law they appoint defines the Society ; and 
the American Officers who. on the 13th of May, 1783, 

(a) Appendix C, page 33. 

+ The word "members, 1 " where used by the Convention, in the Institution, in 
the correspondence of the Society, or elsewhere, was applied indiscriminately to 
both or either of its varities. 

* See letter of Col. Aaron Ogden, President-General of the General Society, 
and an eminent jurist replying May 22, 1837 (after the recorded rejection 
of the Amended Institution), to an inquiry by the New York Society, whether 
a person was admissible as a member of the Society, who applied in the right ot 
his father, who had served with the Duke de Luzerne, in which he says: — "Besides, 
" there is no provision that the right of membership should descend to the posterity 
" of the persons designated in the enclosed provision " — (an extract from the Orig- 
inal Institution, naming with others the Chevalier de Luzerne and certain French 
Officers of the Count de Rochambeau's Army, to whom the medal was to be sent, 
and who were considered as members) "and the adoption of such a rule now, 
" might place the Society in great future difficulties; but if otherwise, this right 
''can only be proved by the production of the medal, which was doubtless sent to 
" every officer in the French A rmy who was entitled to it, or accounting for its loss." 
See Appendix E, page 40. 



14 

adopted at the Cantonment of the Army on Hudson's 
River the Institution of the Cincinnati, assumed the 
prerogatives of members of the Society they created. 
As " the Society, " they did " themselves the honor to 
consider as members" certain of the representatives 
and officers of the Army and Navy of France ; they 
prescribed to the respective State lines the requisites 
of membership, and provided that a copy of the " afore- 
" g° m g Institution " should " be given to the senior offi- 
" cer of each," and that " the proceedings thereon " be 
transmitted " to the commanding officer of the South- 
" ern Army, and the senior officers in each State from 
" Pennsylvania to Georgia, inclusive, and to the com- 
" manding officer of the Rhode Island line " ; and they 
solicited by committee his Excellency the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, " to honor the Society by placing 
" his name at the head of a copy of the Institu- 
tion." Having previously considered absolute the 
membership of the representatives and officers of 
the Army and Navy of France, that the signatures 
of the American Officers in assertion of their own, 
were inscribed on the charter of the Society they 
had framed, the contemporary list headed with the 
name of General Washington attests. On the 19th of 
the following June, at the call of the President, they 
reassembled as " a Convention for establishing the 
" Society of the Cincinnati " ; and having in that 
capacity substituted another, for one of the chief 
features of the Institution, and added others thereto, 
as members they clothed his Excellency the Com- 
mander-in-Chief with the authority of President-Gen- 
eral, and by the election of a Treasurer-General and a 
Secretary-General, completed the temporary organiza- 
tion of the Society. 

Thus were the vital functions of an organized 
Society employed by its members on the 13th of May 
and the 19th of June, 1783, in the creation of commit- 
tees, in the nomination of members, in measures of ex- 
tension through the establishment of State Societies, 
and in the appointment and election of a full official 
staff. 



i5 

Nor is there this evidence only that membership in 
the Cincinnati was coincident with the adoption of its 
Institution. The Societies of some of the States were 
instituted at the Cantonment of the Army. Of these, 
the Society of New York had its inception in the sig- 
natures of the officers of the New York line to the 
Institution, on the days contemporary with its adop- 
tion. Its first meeting was held on the 9th of June 
following, and consisted, as the record shows, of the 
officers of the 1st and 2nd New York Regiments of 
Infantry, who having previously signed the institution, 
were members of the Cincinnati Society. 

The letter itself bears no uncertain sense. * When 
defining the disadvantages of the medal as an order, in 
the estimate of "the different States of Europe" ; its 
dislike by " a gentleman already invested with any Eu- 
ropean order" ; and the congruity of its opposite with 
''other military orders" of Europe, it establishes Euro- 
peans the arbiters of selection. The French gentlemen 
were the only Europeans then admitted, or by the 
Institution admissible as members of the Society; and 
the reasons for adopting a different order therefore, 
being pertinent to them alone, designate them as the 
members of the Society between whom and the Am- 
erican Officers, the distinction was drawn. 

Plainly, then, when Major L'Enfant, in his letter 
of June 10th, I/83, distinguished between the 
"Original" and the "Honorary" members of the 
Society, its actual members consisted of both classes. 
Nor can it be doubted that he, an original member 
cognizant of their existancc, referred to the realities 
of an adult present, and not to the possibilities of an 
embryonic future. 

The reference in the resolution of the constituent 
Convention of June 19th, 1783, to "the members" of 
the Society, obviously includes those "considered 
"as members" on the 13th of the previous month, 
and its designation of the different modes in which 
the order should be worn, not only recognizes Major 

* See extract from letter, page 12. 



i6 

L'Enfant's discrimination between the original and 
honorary members of the Society at the date of his 
letter, but applies it unmistakably to them. That 
this action was predicable of the members of which 
the Society then consisted, is supported by the author- 
ity of the American Cyclopaedia (vol. iv, p. 596), which 
represents its Founders to have organized the Society 
concurrently with the adoption of its Institution ; and 
states that " the honors of life membership were con- 
" f erred upon a number of French Officers"; it is 
supported by the authority of Col. Aaron Ogden, 
an Original Member, who as a delegate to the first 
General Meeting in 1784, to repair the omission in 
the Original Institution, proposed to establish by the 
Amended Institution, a Meeting in France, when as 
President-General of the Society, he in 1837 substan- 
tially decided that its members at the inception of the 
Society, were composed of its Founders and of the 
gentlemen of France, whom they created members for 
life ;* it is supported by the authority of the General 
Meeting, which affirmed in effect the French Officers 
to have been for their own lives only, members contem- 
porary with the Institution of 1783, when adopting 
the report of the Secretary-General that the members 
of the Society consisted, under the original Institu- 
tion, exclusively of the officers of the American Army, 
and of those of them who were foreigners, with their 
eldest male posterity of lineal descent and in the col- 
lateral branches judged worthy, and of honorary members 
for their own lives only ; and which pronounced the final 
extinction of these very French Officers by its refusal to 
enumerate either them or their descendants among the 
members of the Society in I S48 ; "f" it is not only sup- 
ported, but maintained by the authority of the Mar- 
quis de la Fayette, the illustrious Chief of the Original 
Members of the Cincinnati in France, who recognized 
the Founders of the Society as members at its forma- 
tion, and distinguished between them and their coevals, 
the French life members, when in 1825 he applied to 

* See Appendix E, page 40. 
+ See Appendix F, page 42. 



17 

the Society in New York for the admission of a French 
officer, the Baron D'Aurier, who had served during the 
War of the Revolution in the French Army under 
the command of the Count de Rochambeau, as an 
honorary member. % 

The spirit which animates the Society of the Cincin- 
nati is purely American. Its " Institution " is a perennial 
plant indiginous to American soil, vigorous and fruitful 
in its native bed, but languid and lifeless in an alien 
clime. The objection of the American officers to the 
" Amended Institution," lay not in its direction to the 
officers of France of a membership for life which 
previously had been theirs, but in its restriction to 
their own lives only, of a memorial they designed in 
the Society they had founded, should endure in the 
lives of their posterity forever. 

The purpose of the constituent meeting of 1783, is 
obvious in the contrast of its omission either to create 
or provide for an organization of the French Officers, 
or for their incorporation in the General Society, with 
the authority with which they were expressly empow- 
ered by the " Amended Institution " of 1784, to erect a 
separate Meeting in France, and to regulate and govern 
it by rules in conformity with " the objects of the Insti- 
" tution, and the spirit of their government" (1). This 
purpose was persistently withstood by the agreement of 
the meeting of May, 1784, that the " Amended Institu- 
tion " then reported should be "the Institution by 
" which the Cincinnati shall in future be governed (2) ;" 
by the resolution " that the officers of his Most Christian 
" Majesty's Army and Navy, who have served in 
" America, and who were promoted to the rank of 
" colonel for special services, are comprehended in 
''the Institution of the Cincinnati as altered and 
" amended (3) ; " by a recognition of the title of cer- 
tain named French gentlemen to become members 
of the Society under the Institution as amended (4); 

X See Appendix D, page 39. 

(1) Minutes General Meeting 17S4, page 14. 

(2) Minutes General Meeting 1784, page 12. 

(3) Minutes General Meeting 1784, page 16. 
14) Minutes General Meeting 17S4, page 20, 



i8 

by the resolution "that a Committee of three be 
" appointed to report the extracts from the proceed- 
" ings of the meeting" " necessary to be sent to the 
" Society in France (5) ;" by the declaration of their pos- 
session of various papers from foreign gentlemen," which 
" ought to be referred to the Society in France (6) ; " 
by the direction of 1787 that diplomas of member- 
ship shall be transmitted to the marines, and the 
naval and land officers of the Armies of France which 
co-operated with the Armies of America during the 
Revolution (7) ; and by the resolution of the Triennial 
Meeting in 1790, to the effect that the claims of French 
gentlemen then before them in general meeting, for 
admission as members of the Society, be referred to 
the Count d'Estaing and de Rochambeau and the 
Marquis de la Fayette to decide thereon, and " that 
" on their certificate of approval diplomas be trans- 
" mitted to them." (8) 

Understanding of the French Officers identical with 
that of the Founders. 

That the action of the Society, in making the 
officers of the Army and Navy and the high officials 
of France named in its proceedings, Honorary Members 
thereof, was in that sense by them understood and 
entertained, appears by the fact that in response to 
their notification of it, instead of an acceptance of 
membership, and a tender of the requisite initiation 
fee of one month's pay, they express in a letter 
written in their name and behalf, by the Count de 
Rochambeau, January 19th, 17S4, their thanks for 
the honor conferred, their proposal to cement in 
perpetuity the union achieved between America 
and France, and their sympathy with the charitable 
objects of the Society ; and enclosed " a unanimous 
and voluntary subscription " of the sums set to 
their respective names, for the relief and "benefit 
of the unfortunate officers of the American Army," 

(5) Minutes General Meeting 1784, page 21. 

1,6) Minutes General Meeting 1784, page 15. 

(7) Minutes General Meeting 1787, page 30. 

(8) Minutes General Meeting 1790, page 43. 



19 

accompanied with the hope that the " moderate 
" sums sent for such a praiseworthy object " will not be 
disapproved (i). (a) That this letter was transmitted 
by the Count, and received in the interval between the 
meeting in May, 1783, and that in May, 1784, may be 
inferred from the fact that among the letters and papers 
reported at the meeting in 1784 to have been received 
from the Count de Rochambeau, the Count d'Estaing, 
the Baron de Viomenil, the Marquis de la Fayette 
and other French gentlemen, necessary to be acknow- 
ledged and answered, appears on its minutes, to have 
been this letter of the Count de Rochambeau of the 
19th of January, 1784, "with enclosures (2);" while 
the letter of General Washington in reply, as President- 
General of the Society, " signed in the General Assem- 
bly " under date of May 15th, 1784, wherein he declares 
the reception of the sums subscribed by the French 
Officers and transmitted by the Count, " to be incom- 
" patible with the confederation of the United States," 
and declines to receive them " as contrary to the 
"Original Institution of this Society to receive sums 
" of money from foreign nations though in alliance " 
(3) is conclusive that neither by the Founders of the 
Cincinnati in their action under the "Original Insti 
" tution " in 1783, nor by the French Officers when 
notified of it, was it intended by the one to make any 
than Honorary Members of the French Officers, nor 
by the other was it understood that they had received 
a superior right. 

That the subscriptions of the French Officers for- 
warded by the Count de Rochambeau are referable 
exclusively to the action of the Society under the 
Institution of 1783, and were construed purely as a 
benevolence, responsive to the honor implied in a 
nominal membership, may be reasonably presumed 
from their official direction in 1784 to the funds of the 
French Meeting then first instituted with power to re- 

(1) See letter in Baron Girardot's Book. Minutes Gen'l Meeting 1887, p. 19. 
(a) The Chevalier de la Luzerne also signified simply an acceptance. New 

York Book of the Cincinnati (Schuyler) page 21. Appendix C, page 34. 

(2) Minutes of Triennial Meeting of 1887, page 19, and see Minutes General 

Meeting 1784, page 8. 

(3) Minutes of Triennial Meeting of 1887, page 19. Baron Girardot's Book. 



20 

ceive them (i) and is inflexibly enforced by the words of 
General Washington that their reception " is contrary to 
" the Original Institution of the Society," which forbid 
their reference to any right granted by the " Amended 
Institution," and imperatively restrict it to the ac- 
knowledgment of an honor, which the French Officers 
were informed, had been conferred on them by the 
Institution of 1783. 

To the notification of the distinction extended to 
them by the " Original Institution," the French Officers 
responded with their sympathy in its charitable objects, 
and contributed a donative to them ; but when notified 
of the adoption of-the " Amended Institution " and that 
they had become regular members of the Society, the 
names of the officers, forthwith were transmitted from 
France by the Count de Rochambeau to the Society 
in America (2). In this contrast there is ample evidence 
that the Officers of France understood their prefer- 
ment by the " Original Institution," to be only an 
honorary distinction ; but that by the " Amended 
Institution," they were invested with full membership 
in the Society, (a) 

Confirmatory Proceedings of the General 

Meeting and its Correspondence from 

ij8j to 1800 inclusive. 

But the letters prepared by a Committee (Messrs. 
Smith, Williams and Knox), laid before the meeting, (3) 
and with its approval, signed by General Washington, 
President-General of the Society, in reply to those of 
the Counts de Rochambeau and d'Estaing, the Baron 

(1) Minutes General Meeting 1887. page 19. 

(2) Letter of Count de Rochambeau, Aug. 23d. 1784, Baron Girardot's Book. 
(a) Long alter the formal announcement by the General Meeting in 1800 of the 

failure of ihe Amended Institution, and its official Exequatur of the unimpaired au- 
thority of the Original Institution, the nature of the membership with which it in- 
vested the French Officers, was recognized and observed by General the Marquis 
de la Fayette when, on his visit to this country in 1825, representing to the New 
York Society (near fifty of its original members surviving) that Baron D'Aurier, a 
Lieu't-General in the Armies of France had served during the war of the Revolu- 
tion as an officer of distinguished merit in the French Army commanded by the 
Count de Rochambeau, he applied to it for his admission as an honorary member 
of the Cincinnati Society, and became on request, the bearer to the Baron of a 
copy of the resolution ot his admission, and of a diploma as such (.New York Book 
of the Cincinnati (Schuyler) page 107) see Appendix D, page 39. 

(3) Minutes of General Meeting 1784. pages 15-20. 



21 

de Vomenil and the Marquis de la Fayette (i) herein- 
before referred to, cast a stronger light upon the nature 
of the relations between the General Meeting and the 
Officers of France, as they subsisted at the respective 
periods before and after the adoption of the "Amended 
Institution" in 1784. Under their respective dates of 
May 15th and 17th, they were signed by General 
Washington in his official capacity, and transmitted 
each to its particular address. Together with the 
minutes of the General Meeting, (2) they reveal that 
the gentlemen of France, whom the founders of the 
Cincinnati Society did " themselves the honor to con- 
sider as members," had organized a "meeting" or 
"society," supposed to be destitute of power by " the 
claims" and "the memorials, petitions and letters rela- 
" tive to those claims," they preferred to the General 
Meeting for succor and relief. These appeals, though 
properly directed to the General Meeting when made, 
were neither entertained nor discussed at its meeting 
in 1784, but were remitted to the French Meeting, 
with the intelligence of its accession under the 
" Amended Institution," to the power of self relief. 
The letters are uniformly expressive of a distinction 
between " the meeting" in France under the "Original 
Institution" of 1783, and the "meeting" under the 
" Amended Institution " of 1784; by the last of which 
it was assumed, the first had been superseded. There 
being no inherent authority in a meeting of honorary 
members, no remedial power was predicated of it ; and 
the questions propounded, and the claims preferred, 
were therefore returned to the meeting in France, then 
first provisionally enabled by the " Amended Institu- 
tion," with the functions of primary membership. The 
uniformity of tenor to this effect, of these several letters 
is observable in all, and plainly pronounced in that to the 
Marquis de la Fayette. " The meetings of the Society 
" in France being nozv, distinctly considered in all 
" respects, of the same authority as the State meetings, 
" no claims will in future be determined in the general 

(1) Minutes of General Meeting 1887, pages 19-20. 

(2) Minutes of General Meeting 1784, passim. 



22 

" meeting, and all claimants must apply to the meeting 
" of the state or country where they reside. Those 
"meetings alone are to judge of the qualifications of 
"members of the Society, and to execute the benevo- 
" lent intention of our institution." 

Nor should the fact be forgotten that these letters 
to the Counts de Rochambeau and d'Estaing, the 
Baron de Vomenil and the Marquis de la Fayette, are 
in reply to theirs, sent from France in the interval 
between the notice conveyed to the officers of France, 
of the honorary distinction conferred on them by the 
institution of 1783, and the adoption of the " Amended 
Institution" in 1784. As theirs is the vehicle of 
'" memorials and petitions " for relief, and of " claims " 
presented, each of them attests the inability of the 
Meeting it represents. Surely no stronger testimony 
than this admission of incompetency is needed of the 
abnormal character of the Meeting in France under the 
" Original Institution." Yet, that no membership in the 
Society was understood by its constituents to have been 
conferred on the high officials and officers of France 
originally named, still stronger evidence is at hand, not 
only in the fact that no French Society is included 
among the State Societies appealed to by the General 
Meeting in the Circulars of 1784, 1788 and 1796, or in 
the resolutions of 1784, 1 790-1 791 and 1793, (1) as 
necessary to ratify the "Amended Institution," but in 
the fact of its more significant exclusion, in the Circular 
of 1788, from the list of Societies whose "unanimous 
vote" was asserted by them, to be necessary to the 
establishment of " a permanent constitution (2)." 
These, together with the ascription in 1800, of the 
rejection of the " Amended Institution " to the refusal 
exclusively of the State Societies to accept it, (3) form 
a cohesive chain of irrefutable proof. 

Anterior to the circular letter of 1784, and but once, 
was the meeting in France named among the meetings 
to which it was directed to be sent ; while in two instan 

(1) Minutes of General Meeting 17S4, 1788, 1790, 1791, 1793, 1796. 

(2) Minutes General Meeting 1788, page 40. 

(3) Minutes General Meeting 1800, page 65. 



z 3 

ces, contemporary therewith, its absence is notable 
of a design to exclude it from the list of those to which 
ultimately it was thought necessary to submit for ratifi- 
cation, " the Institution as altered and amended" (i). 
Its occurrent association with the State meetings, in 
the letter of General Washington to the Marquis de la 
Fayette (2), recommending to them the Amended 
Institution " for concurrence and ratification," is dis- 
armed by the contiguous declaration pregnant with the 
knowledge of its previous impotence, that the Meeting 
in France is " notv distinctly considered in all respects 
"as of the same authority as the State meetings." 

Service in "the American Army," the animating 
principle of the Cincinnati Society, was an attribute, 
neither of the officers of the "cooperating" French 
Army and Navy, nor of their Excellencies, the Chev- 
alier de la Luzerne and the Sieur Gerard, Plenipoten- 
tiaries of France ; and their conjunctive distinction 
indicates strongly the considerate design to bestow 
upon them, (grateful for their "generous assistance,") 
the honorable hospitality of nominal membership. 

The General Meeting represents acceptably the 
integrity of the Cincinnati and in its Triennial recur- 
rence is the legitimate expression of their unity. The 
INSTITUTION therefore, which confines the one ex- 
clusively within the circuit of the State Societies, and 
restricts the other to delegates from them alone, bears 
intrinsic assurance that no Society in France is compre- 
hended an integrant part of the Society in America, (a) 

(1) Minutes of General Meeting 1784, pages 15-20. See page 60, note 4. 

(2) Minutes General Meeting 1887, page 20 

(a) To the fact that the " Original Institution " comprised no French Society 
among the components of the General Society and admitted no delegates from one 
to its Triennial Meeting, it may be objected that neither was the French Meeting 
of the " Amended Institution" recognized by it in its structure of the Society, 
nor authorized to send delegates to its Triennial Meeting ; and therefore, that its 
want of representation under the " Original Institution," in proof of there having 
been no French Society is without avail. 

It is answered that the letters of General Washington, President-General, 
by order of the Triennial Meeting which enacted the " Amended Institution," 
to the Baron de Viomenil, the Count d'Estaing, and to the Marquis de la Fayette, 
(Minutes General Meeting 1887, pp. 19-20) show that the French Meeting was 
understood to have, and was accordingly conceded by the constituent meetings, 
all the powers of the State Societies. 

Says the letter to the Baron de Viomenil, " The members of the Society in 
" France, will in future, hold meetings there, as we do in these States." 

Says the letter to the Count d' Estaing, " The meeting of the Society in France, 
" is conceived to be in a situation similar to those in the States in America." 

Says the letter to the Marquis de la Fayette, " The meetings of the Society in 
" France being now distinctly considered in all respects^ of the same authority as 
" the State meetings." 



24 

It is not to be supposed that the authors of the 
Amended Institution, had they been conscious of the 
existence of a French Society of powers coordinate 
with those of the States, would, when including those 
who had been admitted to the State Societies, have 
rejected those who had been admitted to the Society 
in France. It is palpable therefore, that the Amended 
Institution, by defining its membership to include " such 
" other persons who have been admitted to the re- 
spective State meetings (i); " furnishes inherent evi- 
dence that a French Society was a thing unknown to 
the Founders of the Cincinnati, (b) 

In this connection it should be observed that, in 
addition to the several cases cited by my distinguished 
predecessor, in his letter to the Society of May 13th, 
1892, of the assumption by the General Meeting in 1784 
of the extinction of the Institution of 1783; supple- 
mented as they may be by the resolution of 1790, by 
which the claims of the " French gentlemen now before 
" the meeting for admission as members" (2) are refer- 
red to the Counts de Rochambeau and d'Estaing and 
the Marquis de la Fayette with power, and supported as 
they are by the agreement of 1784 that the " Amended 
Institution" then reported should be "the Institution 
" by which the Cincinnati shall in future be governed," 
(3) each of the letters quoted of General Washington 
ascribes to the "Amended Institution," an absolute 
jurisdiction. 

1 1 1 Minutes General Meeting, page 13. 

(b) A silver medal containing the Order of the Society had, by the direction 
of the " Original Institution," been transmitted as a testimonial of '" the generous 
assistance " ol France, among others, to certain of the officers of her army, com- 
manded by the Count de Rochambeau. in attestation of their admission as honorary 
members.* To dispel any doubt whether such officers "already " members of the 
•honorary grade, were designed to be included among the officers of the French 
"land forces," described by the "Amended Institution." as those only of the 
French Army invested by it with full membership in the Society, the letter of 
General Washington to the Count d'Estaing (Minutes of General Meeting 1887, 
p. 19) declares that "the Society, careful that those gentlemen who had already 
•' received the Order, should not be omitted through any mistake, had added "and 
'• 'such other persons as had been admitted. &c ' " See note * page 12. 

The impossibility of a construction different from this, is exemplified by a 
reference to the "Amended Institution " to which the "&c " refers, and from 
which the phrase is extracted. The words standing there " and such other persons 
as had been admitted by the State Societies " comprehend those only admitted by 
them to full membership ; and as no French officer could be or ever had been 
admitted to full membership by the State Societies, inclusion among those admitted 
by them could not, as was designed, in any sense, either secure or reinforce the 
membership of the gentlemen of France. 

* The medal referred to by Col. Aaron Ogden, President-General, in his letter 
to the New York Society of May 22, 1837 (see note * page 13 and Appendix E, p. 40), 
in the passage : — " Besides * * * this right can only be proved by the 
" production of the medal, which was doubtless sent to every French Officer who 
" was entitled to it, or accounting for its loss." 

(2) Minutes of General Meeting 1790, page 43. 

(3) Minutes of General Meeting 1784, page 12. 



25 



The paramount power of the State Societies 
conceded by the General Meeting. 

Other evidence of no doubtful import in the ser- 
ies, that the " Amended Institution " by which the 
General Meeting in 1784 agreed that "the Cincinnati 
should in future be governed," was subjected to the 
condition of its acceptance by the State Societies alone, 
appears not only in the resolution of that meeting that 
a copy of the Circular letter, " together with the Insti- 
" tution as altered and amended," be signed by the 
President-General " and forwarded to every State 
"Society;" but in the part of their Circular of that 
year which appeals to "the liberality, the patriotism 
"and magnanimity" of the State Societies "for the 
ratification of their proceedings." (1) This evidence, 
with the words of their Circular of 1788, " the cstablish- 
" ing a permanent constitution which requires a unani- 
" mous vote of the representatives of all the State 
" Societies " (2) completes the record of their capitula- 
tion to the paramount power of the State Societies. 
Repeated appeals were at recurrent General Meetings 
addressed to the recalcitrant State Societies until the 
year 1800, when for want of their confirmation, the 
dissent of the State Societies to the proposed " Amen- 
" ded Institution," was announced, and their refusal to 
ratify the same. 

It would seem that no further proof of the per- 
sistence of the General Meeting in its purpose can be 
required, than its relentless expression of the demise 
of the Original Institution, in a record of fifteen years 
from 1784, to its remission in 1799, by the election 
of a Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer required by the 
" Original Institution," but renounced by the "Amend- 
ed " — followed by the registry in 1800 of its final repu- 
diation through the refusal of the State Societies to 
unite in the celebration of the obsequies. 

{1) Minutes of General Meeting 1784, pages 16-19-20. 
(2) Minutes General Meeting 1788, page 40. 



26 

It is unquestionably true that the "Amended Insti- 
tution " assumed to make certain high officials, and cer- 
tain of the officers of the Army and Navy of France 
members of the Society ; to authorize their separate 
organization in France ; and that an organization was 
accordingly effected, and subsequently recognized in 
various ways by the General Meeting. But, as has 
been shown, such an organization was not known from 
the adoption of the Institution in 1783, to the alleged 
adoption of the "Amended Institution" in 1784. The 
evidence of its existence is confined between the 
date of the first Triennial Meeting in May, 17S4, at 
which the Amended Institution was proposed, and of 
that in May, 1800, at which its defeasance was declared 
by "a unanimous vote" that the Institution of the 
" Society remains as it was originally proposed and 
" adopted by the officers of the American Army at 
"the Cantonment on the banks of the Hudson River 
"in 1783" (1). The effect of its recognition, in either 
the proceedings of the General Meeting or in its official 
correspondence must be limited cx-vi-termini to this 
definite period of time. 

Thus it is plain that the Life of the " Amended 
Institution," depended solely on the concurrence of the 
State Societies; in the failure of which, the Meeting 
in France was summarily bereft of a hypothetical 
existence. 



The exceptional power of the State Societies under 

the " Original Institution " and by 

impriscriptiblc right. 

It may not be thought irrelevant here to remark 
the exceptional power conferred on the State Societies 
of the Cincinnati, by the " Original Institution." They 
are the sole judges of the qualification of applicants, 
and are empowered to admit them to membership in 
the Society at large. They may expel, for cause, any 

(,1) Minutes of General Meeting 1800, page 65. 



2? 

member of the Cincinnati resident within their re- 
spective local jurisdictions. To them alone is entrusted 
the power of appointing Honorary Members of the 
Society, and each is invested with the inalienable and 
irreversible charter right of a Tribunitial negative on any 
alteration of the " Institution," from which it dissents. 
Indeed, the extent of their power cannot be more 
forcibly exemplified than by the unquestionable mag- 
nanimity with which they unanimously included the 
officers of the Navy of the Revolution, within the pale 
of a Society the exponent of chartered rights to the 
officers of the Army of the Revolution alone. 



To the rejection of the "Amended Institution" by 

the State Societies is due the existence at 
this day, of the Cincinnati Society. 

This inventory of powers is a singular instance 
of a part, endowed with the attributes of the whole. 
Singular though it be, fortunately, to it the Society 
is indebted for its existence. The dissent of the State 
Societies from the " Amended Institution," saved to 
its members the Society they enjoy. What would 
have been the consequence of their compliance, may 
now not unprofitably be considered. 



The consequence of an acceptance of the "Amended 
Institution " by the State Societies. 

A glance shows us, that under the " Institution " 
as proposed with Amendments, no Americans were 
members except " the commissioned and brevet offi- 
" cers of the Army and Navy of the United States, 
"who (13th of May, 1784) had served three years, 
" and who had left the service with reputation ; the 
" officers who were in actual service at the conclusion 
"of the war; and all the principal staff officers of 



28 

" the Continental Army." There were also made mem- 
bers, "the late and present (May 13th, 1784) ministers 
" of his most Christian Majesty to the United States, 
" and the Generals and Colonels of regiments and 
" legions of the land forces, and all Admirals and 
" Captains of the Navy ranking as Colonels, who have 
" co-operated with the Armies of the United States in 
" their exertions for liberty ; and such other persons 
" who have been admitted by the respective State 
"meetings" (1). It is evident that a Society thus 
constituted, must have expired with its members, for 
the want of successors ; and as the last of them must 
have died many years since, the Society of the Cincin- 
nati must have perished with them. To the rejection, 
therefore, of the "Amended Institution " by the State 
Societies, is justly attributable the existence at this day 
of a Society, whose endurance in perpetuity was the 
inspiration of its Founders. 

Conclusion. 

From this retrospective view may be derived the 
conclusion that if the "Amended Institution" had 
been ratified, there had now been no Society of the 
Cincinnati ; and that it exists, is due alone to the re- 
jection by the State Societies of the alterations and 
amendments proposed to the Institution of 1783 — a 
conclusion upon which logically rests the irrefutable 
proposition, that if the "Original Institution " survives, 
there never has been a full panoplied Society of 
the Cincinnati in France ; but that if, annulled by the 
"Amended Institution," the Cincinnati Society is 
dead, and the French Society died with it. On which- 
ever horn therefore, of the dilemma it is placed, the 
fate of the " French Society " is the same. 

Fraternally yours, 

JOHN COCHRANE. 
New York, July 4th, 1894. 

(1) Minutes of General Meeting 1784, page 13. 



2 9 

Appendix A. 

(See page 10) 

Pierre Charles L'Enfant of France — enlisted in the 
service of the United States, 1778 — Captain of the 
Corps of Engineers, 1779 — Wounded at Savannah, 
October 9th, 1779 — Taken prisoner at Charleston, 12th 
May, 1780 — Exchanged November, 1780 — Brevetted 
Major, May 2d, 1783 — Served to the end of the war — 
Died June 14th, 1825 — His name appears on the En- 
gineers Roll as an original member of the Cincinnati 
Society. New York Book of the Cincinnati (Schuy- 
ler) page 365. 



Appendix B. 

(See page 10) 

Translation of Major L'Enfant's letter. New York 
Book of the Cincinnati (Schuyler) pages 92, 93. 

Philadelphia^ 10th June, ijSj. 
My General-. 

Immediately on receiving your letter of the 20th 
May, which I met by accident at the post office, on the 
7th inst., I set myself about the plan of the medal. I 
send you both faces of the design, which I have made 
large, so that you may better judge of them. In the 
execution they can be reduced to a convenient size, 
which, on account of the precision required in the 
design, ought not to be less than a dollar, the subject 
being too complex to admit of its being properly 
detailed in a smaller compass. 

I have not made it oval, agreeably to your desire, as 
such a form is not proper for a medal ; besides, it can 
be done in the execution, if the idea should be persisted 
in of having the order in that form, to which, however, 
I think any other preferable. I also believe and hope 
that you will be persuaded of this, and endeavor to 



30 

convince the gentlemen of it who compose the com- 
mittee for forming the Institution, and to whom I beg 
you to communicate the following observations: 

A medal, whether round or oval, is considered in 
the different states of Europe, only as a reward of the 
laborer and the artist, or as a sign of a manufacturing 
community, or religious society ; besides, the abusive 
custom prevailing, particularly in Germany and Italy, of 
sending to France montebanks, dancers and musicians, 
ornamented in this manner, renders it necessary to 
distinguish this order by a form which shall be peculiar 
to itself, and which will answer the two-fold purpose of 
honoring those invested with it, and making itself 
respected for its simplicity, by such as may be in a 
situation minutely to examine its different parts. 

Not that I suppose one form or another will. change 
the opinion of a republican people, accustomed to think; 
I only say, that in an institution of this sort the main 
design should be to render it respectable to everybody, 
and that it is only in appealing to the senses that you 
can engage the attention of the common people, who 
have certain habitual prejudices which cannot be de- 
stroyed. A gentleman already invested with any Euro- 
pean order, would be unwilling to carry a medal, but if, 
flattered by receiving a mark of distinction from a 
respectable society, he should do it, the manner of it 
would by no means increase the value of the order. 
On the contrary, giving it a new and particular form 
will be adding a recommendation to its real value, and 
engage those invested with it, to wear it in the same 
manner as their other military orders, which is the surest 
means of putting it at once upon a footing with them. 

The bald eagle, which is peculiar to this continent, 
and is distinguished from those of other climates by its 
white head and tail, appears to me to deserve attention. 

I send you two essays which I have made, and desire 
one of them may be adopted instead of the medal. In 
one, I make the eagle supporting a star with thirteen 



3* 

points, in the centre of which is the figure of the medal, 
with its inscriptions, as well in front as on the reverse. 
A legend might be added in the claws and go round the 
neck of the eagle, with a particular inscription, or the 
contour of the medal transferred there. In the other, 
I have made simply the eagle, supporting on its breast 
the figure of the medal, with a legend in his claws and 
about the neck, which passes behind and sustains the 
reverse. I would prefer the latter, as it does not 
resemble any other order, and bears a distinct character ; 
nor will it be expensive in its execution. The first 
device, although more complex, would not be so dear 
as people may imagine, especially if the execution of it 
should be committed to skillful persons, which would 
not be the case any more than with the medal, but by 
sending it to Europe, where it would not take up a 
great deal of time, nor be so expensive as to trust the 
execution of it here to workmen not well acquainted 
with the business. 

A medal is a monument to be transmitted to pos- 
terity ; and, consequently, it is necessary that it be 
executed to the highest degree of perfection possible 
in the age in which it is struck. Now, to strike a medal 
well, is a matter that requires practice and a good die ; 
and as there is not here cither a press proper for this 
work, nor people who can make a good die, I would 
willingly undertake to recommend the execution of the 
medal, the eagle, or the order, to such persons in Paris 
as are capable of executing it to perfection. So far 
from proposing to change the oval medal into an eagle, 
on which should be impressed the medal, I do not 
pretend to say medals cannot be made. On the con- 
trary, my idea of the subject is, that silver medals 
should be struck, at the common expense of the Society, 
and distributed, one to each member, as an appendage 
to a diploma of parchment, whereon it would be proper 
to stamp the figure of the medal, the eagle, or the star, 
in its full dimensions, and properly colored, enjoining 



32 

on the members to conform to it, though leaving them 
the liberty, provided it be at their own expense, of 
having it made of such metal and as small as they 
please, without altering any of the emblems. It seems 
to me by no means proper that the honorary members 
should wear the order in the same manner as the orig- 
inal members ; it would be necessary that they should 
wear the medal, the star, or the eagle, round their necks, 
and the original members at their third button-hole. 
These remarks, I beg you, my General, to have trans- 
lated and submitted to the gentlemen concerned. I 
shall be obliged to you to let me know the issue of this 
letter, and their decision upon it. 

I have, etc., etc., etc., 

L'ENFANT. 



N. B. — The head and tail of the eagle should be 
silver, or enamelled in white, the body and wings gold, 
the medal on its breast and back enamelled in the same 
color as the legend ; sprigs of laurel and oak might be 
added in the wings enamelled in green ; the star should 
be pointed in gold, or enamelled in blue and white ; 
those who would be at the expense might, instead of 
white, have diamonds. The riband, as is customary in 
all orders, should be watered." 



33 
Appendix C. 

(See pages 13-19) 

Record of the proceedings of the Founders of the 
Cincinnati Society in the Constituent Convention, June 
19th, 1783 — 'New York Book of the Cincinnati (Schuy- 
ler) pages 21, 22, 23, 24. 

Cantonment of the American Army, ipt/i June, 1783. 

At a meeting of the General Officers, and the gen- 
tlemen delegated by the respective regiments, as a 
Convention for establishing the Society of the Cincin- 
nati, held by the request of the President, at which 
were present, 

Major-General Baron de Si 1 UBEN, President, 

Major-General Howe, 

Major-General KNOX, 

Brigadier-General Patters* in, 

Brigadier-General Hand, 

Brigadier-General HUNTINGTON, 

Brigadier-General Putnam, 

Colonel Webb, 

Lieutenant-Colonel HUNTINGTON, 

Major PETTENGILL, 

Lieutenant WHITING, 

Colonel H. Jackson, 

Captain Shaw, 

Lieutenant-Colonel Hull, 

Lieutenant-Colonel MAXWELL, 

Colonel COURTLANDT. 

General Baron de STEUBEN acquainted the Conven- 
tion that he had, agreeably to their request, at the last 
meeting, transmitted to his Excellency the Chevalier 
de la LUZERNE, Minister Plenipotentiary from the 
Court of France, a Copy of the Institution of the 
Society of the Cincinnati, with their vote respecting his 
Excellency, and the other characters therein mentioned ; 



34 

and that his Excellency had returned an answer, declar- 
ing his acceptance of the same, and expressing the 
grateful sense he entertains of the honor conferred on 
himself, and the other gentlemen of the French nation, 
by this act of the Convention. 

Resolved, That the letter of the Chevalier de la 
LUZERNE be recorded in the proceedings of this day, 
and deposited in the archives of the Society, as a 
testimony of the high sense this Convention entertains 
of the honor done to the Society by his becoming a 
member thereof. 

The Letter is as follows : 

(See page 19, note.) 

Philadelphie, le j Jtiin, 17S3. 
" Monsieur le Baron, 

"J'ai recu avec beaucoup de reconnoissance les statuts de l'ordre 
respectable que messieurs les officiers de l'armee Americaine viennent 
de fonder : si le courage, la patience, et toutes les vertus que cetta 
brave armee a si souvent deployees dans le cours de cetta guerre, 
pouvoient jamais etre oubliees, ce monument seul les rapelleroit. 

" J'ose vous assurer, monsieur, que tous les officiers de ma nation, 
que vous avez bien voulu admettre dans votre societe, en seront infin- 
iment honores ; je vous prie d'etre bien persuade que je sens, en mon 
particulier, bien vivement l'honneur que m'ont fait messieurs les offi- 
ciers de l'armee, en daignant penser a moi dans cette occasion. Je 
compte aller rendre mes devoirs a son excellence le General Wash- 
ington, aussitot que le traite definitif sera signe, et j'aurai l'honneur 
de les assurer de vive voix de ma respectueuse reconnoissance. 

"Je saisis avec un grand empressement cette occasion de vous 
renouveller ks sentiments du ties parfait et ties respectueux attach- 
ment avec lesquels j'ai l'honneur d'etre, Monsieur le Baron, 

votre tres humble, et 
tre's obeissant serviteur, 



LE CHEVALIER DE LA LUZERNE. 

1 de Steuben, Major 
au service des Etats Unis, au Quartier General. 



Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron de Steuben, Major-General) 



The Baron having also communicated a letter from 
Major L' ENFANT, enclosing a design for the medal and 
order, containing the emblems of the Institution, 



35 

Resolved, That the bald eagle, carrying the emblems 
on its breast, be established as the order of the Society, 
and that the ideas of Major L'ENFANT respecting it, 
and the manner of its being worn by the members, be 
adopted. That the order be of the same size, and in 
every other respect conformable to the said design, 
which for that purpose is certified by the Baron de 
STEUBEN, President of this Convention, and to be 
deposited in the archives of the Society as the orig- 
inal, from which all copies are to be made. Also, that 
silver medals, not exceeding the size of a Spanish 
milled dollar, with the emblems as designed by Major 
L' ENFANT, and certified by the President, be given to 
each and every member of the Society, together with 
a diploma, on parchment, whereon shall be impressed 
the exact figures of the order and medal, as above 
mentioned ; any thing in the original institution, re- 
specting gold medals, to the contrary notwithstanding. 

Major L'ENFANT'S letter is as follows: 

Philadelphia, le 10 Juin, i~Sj. 
" Mon General, 

Aussitot apres la reception de votre lettre en date du 20 Mai, laquelle 
ne m'est parvenu que le 7, ayant etc par hazard a la poste, je me suis 
occupe des projets de la medaille. Je vous envoye les desseins de 
deux faces, que j'ai faits, en grand, a fin qu'on puisse mieux juger de 
l'ensemble. Lors de l'execution on la reduira a la grandeur convenable 
qui pour peur que Ton exige de precision dans le dessein, ne doit pas 
etre plus petite pu'un dollar, le sujet se trouvant trop complique pour 
que les details puissent etre appercus sous une plus petite dimension. 

" Je ne l'ai point fait ovale, ainsi que vous me le demandez, vu que 
cette forme est peu propre a une medaille ; d'ailleurs, on pourra tou- 
jours la faire au moment de l'execution, si on persiste absolumcnt a 
vouloir porter l'ordre sous cette forme, a laquelle je crois que tout 
autre seroit preferable ; ainsi que je crois et espere que vous en serez 
bien persuade, et ferez en sorte d'en convaincre les personnes qui 
composent le comite ralatif a cette institution, auxquelles je vous prie 
le communiquer les observations suivantes. 

"La medaille, ronde ou ovale, n'est considered dans les differents 
stats de l'Europe que comme une recompense d'artiste, d'artistant, ou 
comme un signe de communaute de fabriquants, ou societe religieuse — ■ 



36 

en outre, l'usage abusif que Ton en fait, particulierement en Allemagne 
et en Italie, d'ou il arrive en France, des baladins, des musiciens, 
decores de cette maniere, rend ne'cessarie de distinguer cet ordre par 
une forme qui lui soit particuliere, et puisse, en honorant celui qui 
en sera decore, remplir le double objet de se faire respecter par son 
simple aspect, de ceux raeme qui en seront apporte's d'en detailler les 
differentes empreintes. 

" Ce n'est pas qne je croye qu'une forme, ou une autre changera 
l'opinion d'un peuple republicain accoutume a penser, mais je dis, que 
dans une institution pareille, le premier but doit etre de se rendre re- 
spectable a tous les peuples du monde ; et que ce n'est qu'en parlant 
aux yeux qu'on attire l'attention du vulgaire, qu'il y a des pre!uges 
d'habitude pui ne peuvent etra de'truits — qu'un homme qualifie et deja 
decore en Europe ne portera pas une medaille, ou, si flatte de recevoir 
une marque de distinction d'une socie'te respectable, il la portoit, ce 
seroit d'une maniere pen propre a faire accre'diter la valeur de i'ordre. 
Qu'au contraire, en lui donnant une forme nouvelle en particulier, ce 
sera ajouter a sa valeur reelle, celle de la rendre recommendable, en 
engageant ceux qui en seront decores a. en faire parade de pair avec 
les autres orders militaires, ce qui est le plus siir moyen de la mettre 
d'abord de niveau avec eux. 

" Le bald eage qui est particulier a ce continent et qui se distingue 
a celui des autres climats, par sa tete et sa queue blanches, m'a paru 
meriter de l'attention. 

" Je vous envoye deux essais que j'ai faits ; je desire que 1'un des 
deux puisse etre adopte au lieu et place de la medaille. Dans l'un, 
je fais l'aigle supportant une e'toile, a treize pointes, dans le centre de 
laquelle est renfermee la figure de la medaille avec les inscriptions, 
tant sur la face qne sur le reverse. On pourroit ajouter une legende 
clans les serres et autour du col de l'aigle, avec une inscription partic- 
uliere, oil bien y transferre celle du contour de la medaille. Dans 
l'autre, j'ai fait l'aigle simplement portant s-ur sa poitrine la figure de 
la medaille, avec une legende dans ses serres et autour du col, laquelle 
lui repasse par derriere le dos pour soutenir le revers. Je prefererois 
le dernier, en ce qu'il n'a rapport a aucun ordre et porte avec lui un 
caracte're distinctif, et ne seroit pas fort dispendieux a faire executer. 
Le premier menee, quoique plus complique, ne reviendroit pas aussi 
cher qu'on pourroit le penser, toute fois qu'on en chargeroit des per- 
sonnes capables de l'executer ; ce qui ne pent avoir lieu non plus que 
relativement a la medaille qu'en l'envoyant en Eupope, ce qui n'exige- 
roit pas beaucoup de terns, et ne seroit pas si dispendieux, que d'en 
confier l'execution a des personnes incapables. 

" Une medaille est un monument qui passe a la posterite ; et par 
consequent il est ne'cessaire qu'elle soit portee au degre de perfection 
possible dans le siecle ou elle est frappee. Or, bien fiapper une me- 
daille est une chose qui demande de l'habitude et un bon coin, or il n'y 
a ici ni balancier propre a cette besogne ni gens capables be faire un 



37 

bon doin, je me chargerois volontiers de recommender l'execution de 
la medaille, de l'aigle ou ordre, a gens capables de l'executor a Paris. 

" Bien loin que je propose de changer la medaille ovale et un aigle 
sur lequel seroit empreint cette medaille, je ne pretends pas dire qu'ils 
ne scavent pas frapper des me : daille. Au contraire, voici quelle est 
mon idee a ce sujet. 

"On pourroit faire frapper ici des medaijles d'argent anx frais com- 
muns de la societe, et en distribuer une a chacun de ses membres, comme 
un titre adapte a la patente cle parchemin, sur laquelle il sera aussi a 
propos de graver la figure de la medaille, la forme de l'aigle ou de l'etoile, 
avec sa plus grande dimension, detaillant les couleurs, en soignant de s'y 
conformer, laissant la liberte anx chevaliers que s'en pourvoyeront a 
leurs depens, de la faire de tel metal, et aussi petite que possible, sans 
alteration d'aucun des emblemes. II ne me parroit pas non plus a propos 
que les chevaliers honoraires poitassent l'ordre pareille aux chevaliers de 
droit. II faudroit qu'on signifiat qu'ils portassent la medaille, on l'etoile, 
ou l'aigle en sautoir, et les chevaliers a la 3me bouttoniere. 

" Mon General, ce sont les remnrques que je vous prie de faire 
traduire, et de les soumettre a l'opinion general. Je vous semis oblige 
de me faire savoir quelle issue cette lettre aura, et quelle sera la decision 
qu'on en donnera. J'ai, &c. &c, L'ENFANT. 

" N. B. La teete et la queue de l'aigle seroient d'argent ou emaillees 
en blanc, le corps et les ailes d'or, la medaille sur sa poitrine et sur son 
dos, emaillee en couleur de meme que la legende. Ou pourroit y 
ajouter des branches de laurier et de chene dans les ailes, pour lors qu'on 
emailleroit en verd l'etoile du niedaillon seroit pointee en or, ou emaillee 
bleu et blanc, ceux qui voudroient faire le depense pourroient avoir en 
diamant tout ce qui est blanc. Le ruban seroit moire comme celui de 
tous les autres ordres." 



Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention be 
transmitted, by the President, to Major L'ENFANT, for 
his care and ingenuity in preparing the afore-mentioned 
designs, and that he be acquainted that they cheerfully 
embrace his offer of assistance, and request a con- 
tinuance of his attention in carrying the designs into 
execution, for which purpose the President is desired 
to correspond with him. 

Resolved, That his Excellency the Commander-in- 
Chief be requested to officiate as President-General, 
until the first general meeting, to be held in May next. 

That a Treasurer-General, and a Secretary-General 
be balloted for, to officiate in like manner. 



3» 

The ballots being taken, Major-General M'DOUGALL 
was elected Treasurer-General, and Major-General 
Knox, Secretary-General, who are hereby requested to 
accept said appointments. 

Resolved, That all the proceedings of this Conven- 
tion, including the Institution of the Society, be re- 
corded (from the original papers in his possession) by 
captain Shaw, who at the first meeting was requested 
to act as Secretary, and that the same, signed by the 
President's Secretary, together with the original papers, 
be given into the hands of Major-General KNOX, 
Secretary-General to the Society; and that Captain 
NORTH, aid-de-camp to the Baron de STEUBEN, and 
acting secretary to him as President, sign the said 
records. 

The dissolution of a very considerable part of the 
army, since the last meeting of this Convention, having 
rendered the attendance of some of its members 
impracticable, and the necessity for some temporary 
arrangements, previous to the first meeting of the 
General Society, being so strikingly obvious, the Con- 
vention found itself constrained to make those before 
mentioned, which they have done with the utmost 
diffidence of themselves, and relying entirely on the 
candor of their Constituents to make allowance for the 
measure. The principal objects of its appointment 
being thus accomplished, the members of this conven- 
tion think fit to dissolve the same, and it is hereby 
dissolved accordingly. 

True copy from the records of the Society. 

W. NORTH, Secretary to the President. 



39 
Appendix D. 

(See pages 17 and 20) 

New York Book of the Cincinnati (Schuyler) page 187. 

1825. 

General La Fayette having represented to the 
Society that the Baron D'Aurier, a lieutenant-general 
in the armies of France, had served in the United 
States during the war of the Revolution as an officer of 
distinguished merit, in the division of the French troops 
then commanded by General the Count Rochambeau, 
and as allies of the American Army under the immedi- 
ate command of His Excellency General Washington at 
the capture of Yorktown, in October, 1781, and that 
the said Baron D'Aurier is a gentleman of very es- 
timable and fair character, and is in his sentiments a 
patroit, and worthy of being enrolled as a brother 
among the surviving officers of the Army of the United 
States of the Revolution, and that the Baron is desirous 
of becoming an honorary member of the Society of the 
Cincinnati. 

On the 4th July this Society, in testimony of the 
high sense it entertains of the political principles, the 
fair character and talents, and the meritorious services 
of the Baron D'Aurier in the War of the Revolution 
for the Independence of the United States of America, 
do admit him, and he is hereby admitted an honorary 
member of the Society of the Cincinnati : 

Resolved. That a copy of the preceding resolution, 
together with a diploma, with the usual certificate en- 
dorsed theron and signed by the President of this 
Society, be delivered to our friend and brother, General 
La Fayette, with a request that he will be pleased, on 
his return to France, to present the same in due form 
to the Baron D'Aurier. 



40 
Appendix E. 

(See pages 13, 24 and 16) 

Letter of Col. Aaron Ogden, President General of 
the General Society of the Cincinnati, in reply to a 
letter of inquiry by the New York Society — New York 
Book of the Cincinnati (Schuyler), pp. 114-115. 

1837. 
An application being made for admission by Count 
Gabrowski, claiming in right of his father, Count 
Gabrowski, as having served under the Duke de Luzer- 
ne, the Secretary addressed a letter to the President- 
General, requesting information with respect to the 
succession from the officers of the French Army who 
were admitted members of the Society, and received 
the following reply : 

Jersey City, May 22, 1837. 

Chas. Graham, Esq., Secretary. 

Sir, — Yours under the post-mark of May 5th, 
1837, has been duly received, and on examination I 
find from the minutes of the General Society that the 
Society was established by the officers of the American 
Army who signed the Institution, and at the same 
time (gave) a draft on the Paymaster-General for one 
month's pay according to their several grades, who 
combined themselves into one Society of Friends, to 
endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their 
male posterity. 

There is in the original Institution a provision, of 
which I now enclose a copy.* From this provision it 
would seem that the extension of the order should be 
confined to the persons designated therein, for other- 
wise there can be no limit, and it cannot be presumed 
that the President-General, without authority so to do, 
transmitted a medal to any not named in the provision, 

* This enclosure was the extract from the original Institution, naming the 
Chevalier de Luzerne and others, including the Count Rochambeau, and other 
Generals and Colonels of his army to whom the medal was to be sent, and who 
were considered as members. 



41 

or who had not been a General or Colonel in the army 
commanded by Count Rochambeau. Besides, there is 
no provision that the right of membership should 
descend to the posterity of the persons designated in 
the enclosed provision, and the adoption of such a rule 
now, might place the Society in great future difficulties ; 
but if otherwise, this right can only be proved by the 
production of the medal, which was doubtless sent to 
every officer in the French Army who was entitled to 
it, or accounting for its loss. 

I know of no list of the names of the officers of the 
French Army who were admitted members of the 
Society other than as contained in the enclosed pro- 
vision, nor of any such prepared by General Knox, but 
if such an one was prepared at the time, it must have 
been confined to the Generals and Colonels in Count 
Rochambeau's army. 

I am, sir, very respectfully, 

Your most obedient servant, 

AARON OGDEN. 



42 

Appendix F. 

(See page 16) 

Minutes of General Meeting (1848), p. 95. 

November 29, iS^8. — At a General Meeting held in 
Philadelphia, the Secretary-General, in conformity with 
the resolution of a previous meeting (1844) request- 
ing him to " collect from the minutes and proceedings 
of the Society, the different rules and regulations that 
have been from time to time adopted in regard to the 
election and tenure of members and officers," presented 
the following Report, which was adopted, and ordered 
to be printed for the use of members of the State 
Societies : 

" The Secretary-General reported : 

"That he has carefully examined all the minutes 
and proceedings of the Society in his possession, and 
respectfully submits the following as the result : 

" The Constitution, accepted by the Society in 
1783, provides that the members shall consist of the 
officers of the American Army, as well those who have 
resigned with honor, after three years' service in the 
capacity of officers, or who have been deranged by the 
resolutions of Congress, upon the several reforms of 
the Army, as those who shall have continued to the 
end of the war. Those officers who are foreigners, not 
resident in any of the States, to have their names 
enrolled by the Secretary-General. And declares the 
Society shall endure as long as they endure, or any of 
their eldest male posterity, and in failure thereof, the 
collateral branches, who may be judged worthy of 
becoming its supporters and members. 

" This last provision is extended in like manner to 
the descendants of such officers as had died in the 
service. 

" The admission of honorary members for their own 
lives only is also provided for by the Constitution ; but 
they are not to exceed in number, in each State, a 
ratio of one to four of the officers or their descendants. 



43 

" The same instrument directs that ' in the General 
Meeting, the President, Vice-President. Secretary, 
Assistant Secretary, Treasurer, and Assistant Treasurer 
General, shall be chosen to serve until next meeting.' 

" At the first General Meeting of the Society, held on 
the 4th of May, 1784, and continued by adjournment un- 
til the 18th of said month, it was unanimously resolved 
" that the manner of voting be by the representation 
of each State Society." Subsequently, at said meet- 
ing, material alterations in the Constitution were agreed 
to, affecting (inter alia) the election and tenure of 
members and officers. These alterations, however, 
never received the sanction of the State Societies, as 
appears by the unanimous adoption, in General Meet- 
ing, in May, A. D. 1800, of the following report of a 
committee appointed to examine the records of the 
Society, and report to said meeting the state of the 
Institution, viz. : 

"That the Institution of the Society of the Cin- 
cinnati remains as it was originally proposed and 
adopted by the officers of the American Arm}-, at their 
Cantonments on the banks of the Hudson, in 1783." 

" Since the re-acknowledgment of the original In- 
stitution, the Secretary-General finds nothing touching 
the election or tenure of members, except the follow- 
ing, extracted from the minutes of a General Meeting:, 
held on the 4th of May, 1829, viz. : 

"A question having arisen, whether in case of the 
death of a member having no male issue except a 
grandson, the issue of a daughter, such grandchild 
shall be preferred to collaterals. The Society con- 
ceives the true construction of the Constitution to 
be, that the grandchild shall be preferred, he being in 
the direct line of descent." 

" And in relation to the officers of the Society, he 
finds that since the substitution of special for stated 
Triennial Meetings, the officers have been chosen for 
three years, and thenceforward until a new election 
takes place. 

A. W. Johnson, Secretary-General. 



44 
LETTER, 

July 4, iSgj. 

To the Cincinnati of New York: 
BrctJiren : 

The investigation in my former letter of the 
claims to authenticity of a Society of the Cincinnati 
in France, having occasioned other and relevant in- 
quiries, I am disposed by their nature to lay their 
result before you. 

II. Origin and Nature of the Institution of 
the Cincinnati Society. 

The rule that in literary construction allows resort 
to the exigency felt or the object proposed, is very 
generally recognized and accepted. Individual habi- 
tudes, contemporary customs and prevalent opinions 
are the frequent means of elucidating a passage other- 
wise obscure. 

The divergent constructions of the " Institution " of 
the Society of the Cincinnati, doubtless are in a measure 
due to a want of consideration of the circumstances 
which influenced the author who conceived it, or of 
attention to the affinities of the men who created it. 
It cannot be supposed that all were not conversant with 
the principles, and imbued with the spirit of the govern- 
ment in whose defense they had imperilled their lives ; 
especially when their words. "To perpetuate there- 
" fore as well the remembrance of this vast event, {the 
"establishment of Free, Independent and Sovereign States) 
" as their mutual friendships," in the " Institution " they 
framed, explicitly declare their intention that the Free- 
dom, Independence and Sovereignty of the States of 
the Confederation, should ever be reflected in the State 
Societies of the Cincinnati. (Note*.) When Gen'l Knox 
conceived the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783, there is 
reason therefore to suppose that he modeled its Insti- 
tution upon the Articles of Confederation of 1778. A 
careful examination will not fail to reveal their striking 
resemblance. Gen'l Knox, during his early life was 

Note *. Institution, see Appendix A. p. 91. 



45 

conversant with public affairs, and a diligent use of 
his opportunities, doubtless contributed in no incon- 
siderable degree to his subsequent successful conduct 
of them. It is not unreasonable to believe him to 
have been familiar with the features of the govern- 
ment in whose support he was engaged. That the 
similitude observable between the State Societies of 
the " Institution," and the States of the Articles of 
Confederation was designed, a comparison of the two 
instruments furnishes proof to the degree technically 
termed a violent presumption. (Note I.) 

The ascription however, by the Rt. Rev. Wm. 
Stevens Perry, Bishop of Iowa, of the original 
idea of the Society of the Cincinnati, to Dr. Wm. 
Smith, when in Philadelphia, on the 28th of December, 
1778, he publicly alluded to Gen'l Washington, then 
present, as the Cincinnatus of America, attests that the 
Tree of Knowledge is not indigenous to the soil of that 
State. (Note?)/ 

Trite as is the oratorical trope, its incongruity of 
comparison, deprives it of its asserted effect. The 
announcement to CINCINNATUS that he had been 
appointed Dictator of Rome, found him at the plough 
in his Sabine fields — that to Washington, of his com- 
mand of the American Armies, found him in public 
life, a delegate from his native state of Virginia to the 
Continental Congress ; while even the clerical prescience 
cannot be said to be faultless, which is claimed to have 
transferred to Gen'l Washington in 1778, the intent of 
his Officers in 1783, to justify by returning, like CINCIN- 
NATUS, to their citizenship, their application of his name- 
to their Society ; 

In the events of the day however, is to be found the 
true origin of the idea of the Society of the Cincinnati. 
Hostilities had ceased, and the American Army lay in 
its Cantonment at Newburgh on Hudson's River, when 
the arrears of pay due its officers, after an unsuccessful 
application to Congress, and the half-pay promised 
those, who should serve during the war, occasioned 
great anxiety. Then appeared the celebrated Newburgh 
Addresses of Major, afterward General John Armstrong, 
written at the request of many of his fellow officers, 
exhorting them to refuse to perform during the war, 
further military duty, or to lay down their arms on the 
return of peace, unless they were granted their just 
demands. 

Note 1. See Parallel, Appendix A. page 91. 

Note §. American Historical Register. July, 1895, p. 1208. Note 2. 



46 

A meeting of officers was anonymously called for 
the 1 1 th of March, 1783, to discuss their grievances. 
Whereupon Washington called a similar meeting for 
the ensuing 15th, for the consideration of their claims; 
at which his strenuous and pathetic appeal effectually 
allayed their mutinous discontent, and replaced in its 
largest reactionary force, that self sacrificing patriotism 
which had previously characterized the American 
Army. One month thereafter, on the 15th of April, 
General Knox drew up his " Proposals " for establishing 
a Society modeled upon that very government, against 
which the complaints of the officers to whom the pro- 
posals were addressed, had been recently directed with 
menacing violence. The proposals and their accept- 
ance evidently were the kindly fruit of the renewed and 
invigorated patriotism of the Army : and thus on the 
13th of May, 1783, out of the nettle danger implied in 
the incendiary Nevvburgh Addresses, was plucked the 
flower safety, consummate in THE SOCIETY OF THE 
Cincinnati. 



III. Parallel between the powers of the States 

under the articles of confederation, and 

those of the state societies under the 

"Institution" of the Cincinnati. 

The delegates from each State formed the Articles : 
the officers from the regiments of each State adopted 
the Institution. 

The people in the one, are represented by the 
United States: the Cincinnati in the other, are repre- 
sented by the united State Societies. 

The delegates from the States form the Congress 
of the United States: the delegates from the State 
Societies form the Congress of the Society. 

The States retain their sovereignty, freedom and 
independence and every power, jurisdiction and right 
not delegated to the United States in Congress assem- 
bled : the State Societies possess the power, jurisdiction 
and right not delegated to the General Meeting in 
Congress assembled. 

The power of the United States was the constituent 
power of the States whose delegates composed it : the 
power of the General Meeting is the constituent power 
of the State Societies whose delegates compose it. 



47 

The "denomination" of the Society in the text of 
the Institution corresponds topically with the " Style " 
of the Confederacy in that of the articles of Confed- 
eration. 

" Perpetuity''' is invoked by each. 

The assurance of the one government to the citizens 
of each State of "the immunities and privileges" of 
the citizens of every other State, is repeated by the 
one Society in the assurance to its members in each State, 
of equal privileges in all. 

To State, and to State Society is allotted each, its 
numerical representation ; and the rule which appor- 
tions the suffrage to each, corresponds with the unit of 
power accorded to both. 

Each State reserves its independent rights, and each 
State Society preserves its autonomy. 

Each State maintains its own delegates; and while 
each State Society incurs the expense of its own, the 
dependence of the General Meeting upon the State 
Societies for financial support is a faithful reflection of 
that of the Confederacy upon the States it represented. 
(Note 2.) 

Note 2. The fiscal system of the Society has been but little understood, and 
has been practically neglected by both the General Meeting and the State Socie- 
ties. The paragraphs of the Institution relating to it are as follows: 

" All the Officers of the American Army * * * have the right to 
" become parties to this Institution ; provided that they subscribe one month's pay, 
" and sign their names to the general rules in their respective State Societies.' 

" Those officers who are foreigners, not resident in any of the States, will have 
their names enrolled by the Secretary-General, and are to be considered as mem- 
be> s in tin- Societies of any of the States in which they may happen to be, 

" In order to form funds which may be respectable, and assist the unfortunate, 
each officer shall deliver to the Treasurer of the State Society, one month's pay, 
which shall remain for ever to the use of the State Society ; the interest only ot 
which, it necessary, to be appropriated to the relief of the unfortunate. 

" Donations may be made by persons not of the Society, and by members of 
the Society, for the express purpose of forming permanent Hinds for the use of the 
State Society ; and the interest of these donations to be appropriated in the same 
manner as that of the month's pay. 

" It is probable that some persons may make donations to the General Society, 
for the purpose of establishing funds for the further comfort of the unfortunate ; 
in which case, such donations must be placed in the hands of the Treasurer-Gen- 
eral, the interest only of which to be disposed of, if necessary, by the General 
Meeting." 

These provisions may be fairly said to bear the following construction— 

The right of any of the officers, either native or foreign, of the American 
Army,' within the thirteen States, to become a member of the Society, depends on 
two conditions — 

First— that he sign his name to the Institution within the Society of the State 
of his residence ; or if a non-resident foreign officer that his name be enrolled 
by the Secretary-General — in which case he is to be considered a member of the 
Society of the State in which he dwells. 

Secondly— that each officer, native or foreign of the American Army, resident 
and non-resident, subscribe one month's />av and deliver the same to the Treasurer 
of the Society of his State,— the non-resident foreign officer to the Treasurer of the 
Society of the State where he dwells, and to which he is considered as belonging. 
The aggregate of the one month's pay forms a fund of which the State Societies 
are the dispensers, devoted inviolably forever, to the assistance of the unfortunate. 
The donations that are permitted to both the General Meeting and the State 
Societies are subjected to the same limitation. Of the monthly pay. the 



4 8 

The negative of any one of the States in league 
under the Articles of Confederation forbade alteration 
of its terms: the negative of any one of the State 
Societies in compact under the Institution forbids 
alteration of its terms. (Note §.) 

The laws of the Congress of the Confederation had 
merely the force of recommendations : the action of 
the General Meeting of the Cincinnati has merely the 
force of recommendations; and as the stipulation in 
the Articles of Confederation that " each State retains 
" its sovereignty," restricted the power of the Congress 
to advice, so the impress by the Institution of sover- 
eignty on the State Societies, restricts the sole powers 
of the General Meeting to advice. 

State Societies are the depositories exclusive of the General Meeting, the deposi- 
tory only of the donations to it for the same purpose. It is observable that the 
fund of each thus devoted to the Charities of the Society, leaves both unprovided 
with the means of defraying their appropriate expenses, in the event that the 
interest of the fund does not exceed the sum of the charities charged upon it. 
These, it may have been expected, were to be provided by the voluntary contri- 
butions of their members, till the fees affixed by the State Societies to the admis- 
sion of the hereditary successors of the Founders, should constitute a fund for the 
purpose. Doubtless many of the foreign officers of the Army '" not resident in any 
of the States," when having "their names enrolled by the Secretary-General," 
paid their one month's pay to the Treasurer-General, instead of delivering it as 
required to the Treasurer of the Society of the State where they "happened to 
be," and of which they were members Yet, in the event of their improper re- 
ception, their inviolable eleemosynary character adhered to them in the hands of 
the Treasurer-General, and constituted them equally with the donations he re- 
ceived, sacred to the Charities of the Society. If the General Meeting has in any 
measure, by appropriating these funds, impaired them, in that degree has it 
crippled the efforts of the Society to relieve the unfortunate. 

The sum in the Treasury of the General Meeting is probably the accumulation 
of the one month's pay and of desultory donations bestowed. The constitutional 
restraint of its use "for the further comfort of the unfortunate," renders it in- 
violate for any other purpose ; and the consequent want of pecuniary resources 
by the General Meeting, exclusive ot the interest of its funds unexpended in 
charity, constrains its financial dependence on the State Societies. Hence the 
appeal of the General Meeting of 1829 (Minutes Gen'l Meeting 1829. p. 82) to the 
State Societies to contribute a fund " for the purpose of defraying the expenses of 
"the Society " ; and hence the direction of the General Meeting in i860 (Minutes 
Gen'l Meeting i860, p. 151), since disregarded, that "no portion of the invested 
funds or the accruing interest thereof should be applied to the current or ordi- 
nary expenses, but that the same shall be met by the State Societies." 

Note §. The Congress of the Confederation of 1778, dependent on the States 
for the means of paying the debts of the United States, submitted to the States an 
amendment to the Articles of Confederation, allowing the Congress to impose a 
duty of 5 per cent, on imports. Rhode Island alone dissented, and the amendment 
failed. Again the same proposition was, for a somewhat different purpose, sub- 
mitted to the States in 1783, when in 1786 it was practically again rejected by the 
sole negative of the State of New York. Hence our present national Constitution 
to avert the impending bankruptcy of the Government, consequent upon the 
refusal of the States to contribute to the liquidation of its debts. 

The power of one State to defeat the proposed amendment by its single 
negative, rested on the impossibility of changing or adding to the terms of a treaty 
or league without the assent of all the parties to it, even though as in the Articles 
of Confederation and in the Institution of the Cincinnati no such power is expressed. 

It has always been conceded and is undisputed now that no change can be 
made in the Institution of the Cincinnati, any one State Society dissenting. The 
Institution having been understood and held by the Founders to be a compact 
between the State Societies whose members subscribed to it, instead of a majority 
of them being required to its alteration or amendment, the negative 0/ but one was 
understood and held to be sufficient for its defeat. In this consists the strongest of 
the parallels between the Articles of Confederation and the Institution of the 
Cincinnati, and decisive proof of the relations between them. 



49 

As the several States in 1778 entered " into a league 
of friendship" with each other, the officers of the regi- 
ments of the American Army in the several States 
"combined themselves" in 1783 into " one Society of 
friends ;" and as the several States of the Union were 
confederated in the " sole " government of " the United 
States of America" in 1778, the several State Societies 
were confederated in 1783, in the "one Society of the 
Cincinnati." 

Obviously this parallel was not without design ; nor 
was the independence of the State Societies unintended. 
Convincing however as it is, the Institution itself testifies 
that the plan of the Society was projected upon that of 
the United States Government, under the Articles of 
Confederation of 1778, in these precise terms. — "To 
"perpetuate therefore, as well the remembrance of this 
"vast event, [the establishment of free, independent and 
"sovereign States) as their mutual friendships, * 
" the officers of the American Army do hereby in the 
" most solemn manner associate, constitute and combine 
"themselves into One Society of Friends," etc : 
and having been thus actuated to form a Society, for 
their "high veneration of the character of that illus- 
"trious Roman LUCIUS QuiNTIUS ClNCINNATUS, and 
" being resolved to follow his example by returning to 
" their citizenship, they think they may with propriety 
"denominate themselves The Society of the Cin- 
cinnati." 

Here were two distinct objects meditated and 
accomplished, for two separate and distinct purposes — 
the one the institution of a Society whose constituent 
State Societies should reflect the freedom, independence 
and sovereignty of the States of the old Confederation ; 
and the other, the selection of a name which they 
intended for their exemplar " in returning to their citizen- 
ship" — the venerated name of LUCIUS QuiNTIUS 
ClNCINNATUS. 



5o 

IV. The State Societies of the Cincinnati — 
The extent of their power. 

The presence of the respective States as efficients 
of the Institution is averred by the consecration in the 
trinity of its " immutable principles" of " an unalterable 
" determination to promote and cherish between the 
" respective States that union and national honor so 
" essentially necessary to the happiness and the future 
" dignity of the empire ;" is declared in the words of the 
Institution, that "all the officers of the American Army 
" * have the right to become parties to this 

" Institution, provided that they subscribe one month's 
" pay, and sign their names to the general rules in their 
"respective States;" and is enforced by the resolution 
first adopted by the eliminated Society, which, when 
directing that " a copy of the Institution be given to the 
" Senior Officers of the respective State lines," recog- 
nizes, in the method ordered by " the Society " for 
their separate organization, the intended independence 
of the State Societies. 

The Institution in its own language speaks its own 
meaning. Preposterous error lies in the assumption 
that the State Societies are the progeny of the General 
Meeting. They are the intersecting branches of no 
parent stock : as the tree rises from the roots on which it 
rests, the General Meeting rests upon the State Societies 
that support it. Instead of a division separating the 
whole into parts, the respective States represented by 
the officers of the regiments of each, were the parts 
that constituted the whole. (Note §.) " For the sake 
"of frequent communications" between the sovereign 
components of the confederated Society, the Founders 
resolved it by the chorographical lines of the thirteen 
States, into thirteen geographical organizations. Of 
this significance is the Institution, whose language is 
descriptive not of State Societies IN the States — 

Note §. This order, however, was intended to be reversed by the Amended 
Institution, by which "The Society of the Cincinnati," having first been con- 
stituted of the Officers of the American Army, and certain of the military and 
civil Officers of France, with periodical meetings prescribed to it, was divided 
into "State Meetings," to which alone funds were appointed, the interest of 
which was made contributory to the expense of " The Society " and its officers, 
on demand. 

(Amended Institution, Sec. 4, 5. 10, 12. Minutes Gen'l Meeting, 1784, pp. 13, 14.) 



5i 

fractions of a Society including them ; but of integral 
Societies " OF the State " where organized. Nor 
did contemporary opinion diverge from this judg- 
ment when Chief Justice Marshall, the Biographer of 
Washington, pronounced that " The military gentlemen 
"of each State were to constitute a distinct Society; 
" deputies from which were to assemble triennially in 
" order to form a general meeting for the regulation 
" of general concerns." (Note 3.) These State Socie- 
ties the Institution irrevocably pronounces the Society 
of the Cincinnati in these explicit terms : " From the 
" State lists the Secretary-General MUST make out at 
" the first general meeting, A COMPLETE LIST OF THE 
"WHOLE OF THE SOCIETY." 

That the purpose of the communications between 
the State Societies is exclusive of the General Meeting 
is evident 

First — from the difficulty under the pressure of 
personal privations, of communications between the 
distant parts of a new country of indefinite extent, 
sparsely populated, and destitute of facilities for interior 
intercourse. 

Secondly — from the power of the State Societies to 
organize District Societies — implements of inter-com- 
munication. 

Thirdly — from the impossibility of "frequent com- 
munications" with a body of an intermittent triennial 
existence : and 

Last — from the provision for communication be- 
tween the State and the General Meetings, elsewhere 
in the Institution specifically made. (Note *.) 

Of the delegates from the State Societies the 
Founders created a body which, as the representative 
of the Societies, they called the General Meeting. They 
directed it to be convened either annually or every 
three years. They constituted its "meetings" and the 
" meetings " of the State Societies A JOINT PROTECTOR- 
ATE of "the principles" of the Institution. This con- 
current jurisdiction, they separated distinctly from the 
supervision of the general interests of the Society, which 
was confided to the General Meeting alone. Its deriva- 
tive power thus restricted to conjunctive exercise with 

Note 3. Marshall's Life of Washington, p. 26. 

Note *. " Each State meeting shall write annually, or oftener if necessary, a 
circular letter to the other State Societies, noting whatever they ma}^ think 
worthy of observation, etc. * * * * Copies of these letters shall be regularly 
transmitted to the Secretary-General, who will record them in a book to be assigned 
for that purpose." 

"The circular letters which have been written by the respective State Societies 
to each other, and their particular laws, shall be read and considered" (in the 
General Meeting), etc. (Institution). 



52 

the State Societies, its only other office appointed by 
the Institution, is the care of those interests extrinsic of 
its associate jurisdiction, comprehended within "the 
" general intendment of the Society." Instead therefore, 
of the negative of the State Societies being, as has 
been erroneously supposed, a right resting in prescrip- 
tion, it is an indefeasible right, the radical product of 
the Institution itself. 

Certain important powers belong to the organi- 
zations of the State Societies. They alone are the 
supreme judges of the qualification of applicants for 
the membership of the Society, and they alone are 
authorized to admit them members. The requisites of 
membership are prescribed by the Institution. This 
prescription is the instrument of that perpetuity which 
underlies the enumerated principles of the Society, and 
without whose support, their immutability were incon- 
ceivable. Pervasive of the organization, it is its prime 
principle, and necessarily the basis of the whole super- 
structure. When therefore, to the State Societies was 
entrusted the vital function of arbiters of the qualifi- 
cation of " the members who may be proposed," they 
were invested with the supreme prerogative of the 
Society. (Note *.) 

A member admitted, they may for specific cause 
expel ; and a member residing within the local jurisdic- 
tion of any one State is subject to its expulsive power. 
(Note 4.) The election of honorary members is exclu- 
sively theirs. (Note 5.) They meet at their option. 
Their doors open to the ingress and egress of members 
of the Cincinnati from and to sister States. They are- 
Note *. Theirs is a power to determine whether the applicant possesses the 
qualifications named by the Institution, and not a license to supplant them with 
devices of their own. 

Note 4 " Ample powers are given to the State Society for the management ot 
its internal police (so to speak) extending even to the expulsion of a member who 
by conduct inconsistent with a gentleman or a man of honor, or by opposition to 
the interests of the country in general, or the Society in particular, may render 
himself unworthy to continue a member " (North American Review, Oct., 1853 — 
•'The Cincinnati," by Winthrop Sargent). 

Note 5. In the report of the Secretary-General to the triennial meeting ot 
1890, at page 62 of its " Proceedings " occurs this passage : " On the 17th of May, 
"1787, the General Society at its first triennial meeting admitted his Exellency 
" Lieutenant-General M. le Marquis de Bouille, Commander-in-Chief of the 
•• French Military forces, as an honorary member, and directed that he be duly 
" invested with the Order. The right to admit honorary members may therefore 
" be considered an inherent one " The meeting of 1787 was the second triennial 
Meeting, the Society of the Cincinnati not having originated as implied with the 
Amended Institution in 1784, but with the Original Institution in 1783, when the 
Founders as " the Society " directed the fii sr General Meeting to be holden on the 
1st Monday in May, 1784,— when it accordingly met and was first organized as "a 
meeting " The minutes of the meeting of 1787 declare that instructions should be 
'•transmitted to the President or Senior Officer of the Society in France to offer to 
"invest the Marquis <le Bouille with the order of the Cincinnati." Neither his 
membership nor its quality is recorded; and that the honor of the Order was 
" offered " under the apocryphal authority of the Amended Institution, points with 
shrewdness the suggestion, that the power to admit honorary members, limited by 
the Original Institution to the State Societies, is inherent now in the General 
Meeting. 



53 

the chief almoners of the charities of the Society, and 
the chief conservators of their store — depositories of 
its secular funds, and disbursers not only defraying 
the expenses of the delegates to the General Meeting, 
but bearing its charges. (Note 6.) They are au- 
thorized to organize subordinate Societies, to dissolve 
them (Note §), and "to regulate everything respecting 
"themselves consistent with the general maxims, prin- 
ciples or general rules of the Cincinnati " — a condition 
affecting a power otherwise absolute, but of which they 
themselves are constituted the associate, and practically 
become the ultimate sole judges. Their charter sole 
negative, is a veto power inalienable and irrevocable in 
each. In its various parts the Institution abounds with 
the evidence of an intention to lodge all power with the 
State Societies, save that of which they are the joint 
participants; (Notes 7-8), and of this their tenure lies 
expressly in grant. 

Equally erroneous is the affirmation of the inherent right of the General 
Meeting to admit honorary members even under the Amended Institution. The 
following Section was among those submitted by the Committee which reported 
it: "No honorary member shall hereafter be admitted but upon election bv the 
"State meetings, with permission of the government of the State in which the 
" meeting is held ; nor sha'l anv member be elected but by the meeting of the State 
"in which he actually resides." It was expunged on debate (Sargent's Journal, 
Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Vol. VI., p. 102) By its rejection the power of creating 
honorary members was struck from the Amended Institution as adopted. Such 
also is the authoritv of Mr. Wmthrop Sargent. " In the Amended Institution the 
" hereditary principle and the power of electing honorary members were abolished" 
(Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc, see p. 68V Concurrent with this judgment is the high 
authority of Chief Justice Marshall, "at the General Meeting in May (1784) the 
hereditary "principle and the power of adopting honorarv members were relin- 
quished" (Marshall's Life of Washington, p. 301 ). See also James Fairlie, a delegate 
from New York to the General Meeting, to Benj. Walker, Mav 4, 1784 — "The 
alterations are no hereditary succession ; no more honorary members : the funds to 
be put into the hands of government ; no Treasurer-General- Knapp's Life of 
Baron von Steuben, p. 567. 

Note 6. It is only the fund originally constituted of the one month's pay of 
the Original Members of the Society, that the Institution makes inviolate for the 
aid of " those officers and their families who unfortunately may be under the neces- 
" sity of receiving it " together with the auxiliary fund of ■•probable" donations 
to the General Meeting " tor the further comfort of the unfortunate." The fees 
affixed by the State Societies under their constitutional power of self regulation, to 
the admission of hereditary members, and the residue of interest of the one 
month's pay, after defraying its charitable burden, are funds subject to their 
appropriate use, and the source of their supplies to the General Meeting, dependent 
upon them for support. 

Note §. " The General Society will, for the sake of frequent communications, 
be divided into State Societies, and these again into such districts as shall be 
directed by the State Society. The Societies of the districts to meet as often as 
shall be agreed upon by the State Society." — (Institution.) 

Note 7. By the Amended Institution, the State Societies of the Original Insti- 
tution were to have been abolished. No Society of the Cincinnati was to have 
existed in any of the States ; but the members within any of the States were, as a 
part or division of the Society itself empowered to assemble within their respec- 
tive States in "State Meetings" distinguished from the meetings of the Society, 
otherwise provided for. (Amended Institution, Sections 4, 5, 10, 12. Minutes 
General Meeting, 1784. pp. 13, 14. 

Note 8. The General Meeting claims the right of reviving and authorizing 
the reorganization of defunct State Societies. In 1872 it declared that ••we are 
" fully convinced of the supreme authority of the General Society" to " resusci- 
tate' State Societies of the Cincinnati; (Minutes General Meeting, 1872. p 1921 
and it has repeatedly exercised the power. At the Triennial Meeting of 1S81 (Min- 
utes General Meeting. 1881. p, 224) a Committee of which I was the Chaiiman re- 
ported a similar opinion. Mature consideration however discovers the mistake. 
The principle of revival is appurtenant to all the State Societies. If dormant, they 
are not dead.— they are perpetual ; and the power of reorganization inheres and runs 
in the right line of hereditary descent from their original members unchallenged 
forever, except by the General Meeting, under the conventional right upon the 
presentation of their credentials, to judge of the qualification of its members. 



54 

V. The joint jurisdiction of the State Soci- 
eties, and the General Meeting, of the 
Principles, Maxims and General 
Rules of the Society of 
the Cincinnati. 
The supervising office of the General 
Meeting. 

The meetings designated by the Institution are 
of two bodies — those of the separate State Societies 
within the different States, the one ; the other, those of 
the General Meeting, their representative. The pre- 
siding presence in both is " the Society of the Cincin- 
nati " — at the meetings of the State Societies, in the 
persons of their members, and at the General Meetings, 
in the delegates who represent them. 

These " meetings," in the two following paragraphs, 
the Institution selects as the depositories of its power. 

"At each meeting (of the State Societies and of the 
" General Meeting) (Note §) the principles of the Insti- 
" tution will be fully considered, and the best measures 
" to promote them adopted." 

" The circular letters which have been written by 
" the respective State Societies to each other and their 
" particular laws shall be read (in the General Meeting), 
"and all measures concerted which may conduce to the 
" general intendment of the Society." 

A difference in the power conferred by the two 
paragraphs, is denoted by the difference in their lan- 
guage. Nor can that difference be attributed to acci- 
dent, or be considered as purposeless. Gen'l Knox, 
though not of scholastic acquirements, possessed an 
accurate knowledge of his native English, and his aide 
Capt. Shaw, on whom devolved the task of revising 
his work, is accredited with a large share of literary 
proficiency. Under the first paragraph, — the grant of a 
joint power to the " meetings" of the General Meeting 
and of the State Societies collectively, — " the best meas- 

Note §. No District Society has existed save in the State of New Vork, by 
whose Society it was created, and suffered to expire. 



55 

" ures to promote the principles of the Institution," are 
to be "adopted" — taken and executed as means to the 
end of promotion ; by the last, the concession to the 
General Meeting is of " all measures to be concerted" — 
contrived by mutual communication. But whether 
enjoined as a duty, or conferred as a power, it is not to 
adopt "the best measures to promote the principles of 
"the Institution," but is explicitly restricted to "meas- 
ures" that may conduce to the general intendment of 
the Society, defined in the joint power previously granted 
to the State Societies and the General Meeting. To 
have subjected two equal joint-tenants of a power, to the 
domination of one, had been a crass inconsistency, incon- 
ceivable of the authors of the Institution. 

The American Officers who denominated " them- 
" selves the Society of the Cincinnati," having divided 
it into two bodies designated the State Societies and the 
General Meeting, determined its legislation should con- 
sist of the conjoint deliberation and enactment of the 
two, and committed to the General Meeting the execu- 
tive power of superintending its enforcement. That 
the Founders therefore, were conversant with the 
American system of civil government, not only maybe 
presumed, but is obvious in the care with which they 
observed the distinguishing axiom of American polity, 
that " public safety consists not in the consolidation 
"and concentration, but in the distribution of power/' 

The defeat by the State Societies, of the proposal 
of the General Meeting of 1784 to expunge from the 
Institution its fundamental principle of primogeniture, 
and the unanimity with which the officers of the Navy 
were admitted by the meetings of the State and Gen- 
eral Societies, to a participation in the rights bestowed 
on the officers of the Army alone, are instances of the 
concession by each, of the intent of the Institution to 
commit its principles to the joint custody of both. But 
though of equal authority, they are equally subjected 
to the paramount power of the Institution, and both 
are perpetually bound to an inviolable observance of its 
fundamental principle of Primogeniture, and its three 
cardinal virtues of Philantrophy, Patriotism and Charity. 



56 



VI. The virtual ultimate control by the 
State Societies. 

Though nominally conjoint, the exercise of this dual 
regency practically terminates in the ascendancy of the 
State Societies. Their unanimity being a preliminary 
essential to their power, necessarily instructs and event- 
ually controls the deliberations of their representatives 
in the general meetings. In their unity representing 
the one Society of the Cincinnati, their determination 
is expressed by the major voice of each ; and their tri- 
ennial delegates accredited vicariously to the General 
Meeting to represent them, must consequently confirm 
it with corresponding unanimity. So that an attempt 
to assail, or a failure to protect any one of the funda- 
mental principles of the Institution, is subjected sub- 
stantially to the correction of the State Societies. 
While but one of them therefore, adheres to these 
principles, the perpetuity of the Society will be secure ; 
but their repudiation by all would be the signal of its 
doom. However plainly written in the lines of the 
Institution is the possible declension by the State 
Societies of representation in the General Meeting, its 
impotence for many years in the absence of a quorum 
of the States, records the event ; and its utter suspen- 
sion during a protracted term of their omission to be 
represented at all, confirms it. Its constitutional 
destitution of pecuniary resources, and its dependence 
upon the State Societies for supplies, indicate its event- 
ual dissolution whenever refused. It would doubtless 
be succeeded by a Society nominally of the Cincinnati ; 
but no trace of legitimacy, would be discernible in the 
changeling. (Note §.) 

Note § Though in ethics principles are inherently immutable, yet the immut- 
ability of its " principles" having been imposed by the Institution a permanent 
and enduring obligation of the Society, it may be questioned whether either its 
principles or their basis of primogeniture can be changed, even with the consent of 
all the State Societies, and whether in that event the Cincinnati of the Fathers 
would not cease to exist. 



$7 
VII. Confirmative annals of the Society. 

The history of the General Society verifies the 
necessity of a union of the State Societies and the 
General Meeting, to effect a change in any one of the 
fundamental principles of the Institution. It was 
recognized in the appeal of the Triennial Meeting of 
1784 to the State Societies to ratify the proposed 
alterations of the Institution ; and that without their 
united assent the act was nugatory and void, the pro- 
ceedings of the Triennial Meeting of 1800 record. 

The effort of the General Meeting in 1784 to induce 
its coparceners to ratify its violation of the principles 
upon which depends the perpetuity of the Society, was 
renewed in 1851 and in 1854. Despair of the co- 
operation of the State Societies, impelled its double 
offence in 1856 of trampling both on "the principles" 
of the Institution and on the constitutional rights of 
the State Societies in their support. The NULLITY of 
the act renders it not the less censurable. Under the 
influence of public clamor and alarm, the first effort 
may not have been culpable, nor even have been inex- 
cusable ; but no consideration palliates the last. 
(Note *.) (Note 9.) 



VIII. Delinquent State Societiks. 

Nor are the State Societies undeserving of reproof. 
Though constant in their unity to the mandates of the 
Institution, their circle was not without breach. Some 
hesitated, others succumbed. Among them was New 
York whose compliance though infectious, was happily 
ineffectual to avert the sturdy opposition of some of 
her sister States. Yet, has New York availed herself 
of the virtue of repentance ; and of all the States, 
stands alone with her sister Pennsylvania, upon the 

Note *. The arbitrary departure from the Institution of 1783, by the General 
Meeting ol 1856, has been recognized and followed bv many of the State Societies. 
Their numerical expansion has been chiefly the effect; but another and more 
considerable, is the injury done their claim to legitimate succession. The 
State Societ es of New York and Pennsylvania, consisting of" the eldest male 
posterity " of the Fathers, represent in their integrity, the Cincinnati of 1783— the 
others, consisting of their kinsmen, represent in their divergence, the Cincinnati 
of " 1854 " — different Societies, with one patronymic, but of different structure, on 
different foundations. 

Note 9 To one of little sympathy with the crude aspirations of " the wide 
encroaching Eve," the doubt' nevertheless may be permitted, whether she is 
chargeable with piracy of the name of the Cincinnati by an Association which 
infringes the essential principles of the charter which constitutes its claim to the 
name ; or the deeper doubt whether a Society, which, in its titular assumption of 
the cognomen of the Roman Cincinnatus, claims to be of his family, would be 
accorded " a standing in Court " to charge others with the piracy of which, it may 
be contended, it is guilty itself. 



58 

pure and unadulterated principles of the Institution. 
The fortune and the honor however, of the rescue of 
its Charter and of saving the Society of the Cincinnati 
to the posterity of its Founders, belong emphatically 
to the Society of the State of New Hampshire, with a 
few of her sister Societies. 

IX. The Society of the Cincinnati in France 

NOT AUTHENTIC — ADDITIONAL PROOFS. 

No authentic Society of the Cincinnati exists in 
France. In the whole range of evidence, not a sci>itilla 
appears in its behalf. The documents cited to its 
support condemn it. It is a figment of the imagination 
— a bantling of the brain, for whose paternity the 
General Meeting is pilloried as the putative father. 

A Society proposed May ioth, 1783, "whose mem- 
" bers shall be the officers of the American Army," and 
" the plan for establishing a Society whereof the officers 
" of the American Army are to be members," accepted 
on the following 13th, testify that none but American 
Officers were designed to be members in regular 
standing. 

None but "officers of the American Army" com- 
bined themselves "into the one Society of Friends;" 
nor when they " denominated themselves The Society 
of the Cincinnati," was the preclusion of the French 
Officers any the less apparent. With this conclusion 
concurs the highest contemporary authority. Says 
Chief Justice Marshall " The insignia of the order were 
"to be presented (to the French Officers) and they 
" were to be invited to consider themselves members 
" of the Society, at the head of which the Commander- 
" in-Chief was respectfully requested to place his name." 
(Note 1.) 

The Institution itself makes no mention either of 
the Notables of France or of the officers of her Army 
and Navy. Very generally it is confounded with the 
proceedings of the Society immediately upon its adop- 
tion. With the delineation and establishment of its 

Note 1. Marshall's Life of Washington, p. 26. 



59 

" Order " the Institution was complete. " The Society " 
of its creation, having then directed " the President- 
" General (when appointed ) to transmit to them as 
"soon as may be a medal containing the Order of the 
" Society" and " acquaint them that the Society do them- 
" selves the honor to consider them as members," forth- 
with prescribed " the manner and form " in which " the 
" officers of the respective State lines * * * of the 
" American Army" should sign " the aforegoing Insti- 
tution " to " become parties to it." The restriction to 
the American Officers of the ceremonial of induction 
into the membership of the Society, demonstrates 
that the French gentlemen were not understood to 
be included within its corporate precincts; and that 
the transmission to them of the Order of the 
Society, was intended to be the sensible token of their 
honorable consideration as nominal, but effete members. 
(Note §.) 

A selection of French Officers as the guardians 
of " the union and national honor of the respective 
States" had been unique; in a burden of charity im- 
posed on a French Society unprovided with funds, the 
superlative of satire had been attained ; and consum- 
mate folly committed in a permanence of the mutual 
affection of American Officers, buttressed by a company 
of gentlemen in France. (Note *.) 

There was no Circular letter addressed to the " Soci- 
" ety in France." A circular to a single Society had been 
a solecism of which the Founders were incapable. In 
the printed minutes of the General Meeting of 1784, the 
resolution is recorded " that the Institution as Amended 
"and Altered be forwarded to each State meeting and 
" to the meeting in France, and that it be accompanied 
" with a Circular letter to each explanatory of the 
" reasons which produced the amendments and altera- 

Note §. This conclusion, corroborated by the aforegoing opinion of Chief 
Justice Marshall, (ante page 58) is confirmed by the following words in the letter 
addressed by the General Meeting of 1784 to the Senior Land and Naval Officers 
and others, members of the Cincinnati in France. " P'or us then it is enough * * 
■' that our Friendships should be an immutable as they are sincere, and that you 
"have received thb token of them with such tender sensibility ;" (Appendix B, 
pp. 96-97) as well as by the following words in the letter of Major L' Enfant to the 
Baron von Steuben from Paris, Oct. 29, 1783 — "Here in France, they are more 
"ambitious to obtain the Order of the Cincinnati, than to be decorated with the 
"Cross of St. Louis; and daily 1 receive application for it." — Knapp's Life of 
Baron von Steuben, p. 564. 

Note*. See Institution, p. 94. 



6o 

" tions, and recommending the same to their observ- 
" ance." (Note 2.) This resolution followed immedi- 
ately after the adoption of the Amended Institution, 
on the 13th of May, and of the agreement that "it 
should be the " Institution by which the Cincinnati 
" shall in the future be governed." (Note 3.) As the 
resolution and the minutes import, their reference to 
"a French Society," and that of all of the subsequent 
proceedings, communications and correspondence of 
the General Meeting for fifteen years, was to no other 
than to the French Meeting of the Amended Institution. 
(Note 4.) The Journal of the proceedings of the 
meeting by Governor Sargent, does not include " the 
meeting in France " in this resolution : but in both the 
minutes and the Journal it is stated that on the follow- 
ing 17th of May, " a draft of a letter to the Senior land 
"and naval officers and other members of the Society 
" in France was read and approved, and a transcript 
" thereof ordered to be signed and transmitted by the 
" President." (Note 5.) Though neither the letter nor 
its tenor is disclosed by the minutes, they appear in the 
Journal. (Note 6.) 

The following extract from the letter is explanatory 
of both— 

" From the General Meeting held in Philadelphia 
" on the first Monday in May, 1784. To the Senior 
" land and naval officers and other members of the 
" Cincinnati in France— Gentlemen : We, the delegates 
"of the Cincinnati, having judged it expedient to make 
" several alterations and amendments in our Institution 
"and having thought it our duty to communicate the 
" reasons upon which we have acted, in a Circular ad- 
" dressed to the State Societies, do now transmit for 
" YOUR INFORMATION, a transcript of that letter, to- 
" gether with a copy of the Institution as revised and 
" corrected," &c. 

Note 2. Minutes General Meeting, 1784. p. 15. 

Note 3. Minutes General Meeting, 17S4. p. 12. 

Note 4. In mv letter of July 4, 1894, to the New York Cincinnati it was stated 
that but once, and that in the resolution cited, was a French Society named, but not 
that it referred to the Society of that name authorized by the Amended Institution. 
See pages, 22-23. 

Note 5 Minutes General Meeting, 1784, p. 21. Sargent's Journal. Memoirs, 
Penna. Hist. Society, Vol. VI, pp. 111-112. 

Note 6. Winthrop's Journal Supra., pp. 111-112. 

For letter in full see Appendix B, p. 96. 



6i 

Thus it appears that no Circular, but a copy of the 
Circular containing "the reasons" for "the several 
alterations and amendments" in the Institution, 
made and addressed by the General Meeting to the 
State Societies, was transmitted to the Senior land and 
naval officers, and other members of the Cincinnati in 
France, "for their information" together " with a copy 
"of the Institution as revised and corrected." 

Upon this evidence may be securely rested the alle- 
gation, that no Society of the Cincinnati was authorized 
in France by the Original Institution, and that no 
Circular was addressed or transmitted to such a Society ; 
but, that after the alterations and amendments of the 
Original Institution had been adopted, a letter to 
the Meeting in France then authorized, together with a 
transcript of the Circular to the State Societies, and a 
copy of the A ///ended Institution which chartered them 
a Meeting, was transmitted to its members "for their 
information." 

The minutes of the General Meeting of 1887 which 
record the petition of the French applicants and the 
privilege granted them to " revive " " the French Society 
of the Cincinnati," disclose the grave fault of mistaking 
the French Meeting organized under the Amended 
Institution of 1784, for a French Society organized under 
the Original Institution of 1783. Until authorized by 
the Amended Institution, no Meeting of the Cincinnati 
existed in France. The letters of the General Meeting 
with the sanction of Gen'l Washington (Note 7) the 
President-General and its presiding officer, are to that 
elfect, when returning to the French gentlemen their 
"petitions" and "claims" addressed to its favor for relief, 
as" now" within compass of the power, which a French 
Meeting permitted by the Amended Institution, placed 
in their hands. The claimants who as " the hereditary 
" representatives of the Original Members of the Society 
" of the Cincinnati in France," demanded "an approval 
" by the General Meeting of 1887," °f ^ ie " reconstitu- 
tion " of the "Society in France," under the denomi- 
nation of "the French branch of the Society of the 

Note 7. Minutes General Meeting, 1887, pp 19, 20. 



62 

" Cincinnati," evidently confused the spurious Institu- 
tion of the Cincinnati which provided for one, with the 
genuine Institution of 1783 which provided for none. 

A similar error occurs in the statement of the Sec- 
retary-General (Note 8) that the " original French 
Society," the evidence of whose existence he derives 
from a signature of Louis XVI in 1792, and whose final 
disappearance he imputes to the " Reign of Terror," 
was an " original French branch of the Society of the 
Cincinnati" organized under the Institution of 1783, 
and not the original French Meeting of the Cin- 
cinnati organized under the Institution of 1784, as 
significantly denoted by the unimpeded sequence of 
the royal signature of 1792, directly from the organiza- 
tion under the Amended Institution of 1784, the only 
Meeting of the Cincinnati ever organized in France. 
Into this blunder the General Meeting of 1887 was 
plunged bodily — nemine dissentient c. 

The error which mistakes a Meeting of the Cin- 
cinnati in France of synchronous birth and decease with 
the lifeless Institution of 1784, for a French Society 
appointed by the Institution of 1783, is the cardinal 
error which infects every effort to revive an ephemeral 
Meeting long since extinct. 

The Society, from its institution in 1783, was coveted 
by the French Officers. In France it was held in higher 
distinction than here. (Note 9.) Though generally 
favored by the American Officers, some refrained be- 
cause of its anti-democratic tendency. Far different 
however was its consideration by the foreign officers 
who eagerly solicited its insignia. (Note 10.) 

Note 8. Minutes General Meeting, 1887, p. 20. 

Note 9. ''The French Officers bore about the mark of their distinguished 
" gallantrv * * In fact our allies looked upon the Society as created entirely 
"for their own distinction; and such is the account that Rochambeau himself 
"gives in his Memoirs." 

Alex. W. Johnson, Sec'y-Gen'l. Memoirs, Penna Hist'l Soc, vol. VI, p. 34. 

Note 10. By the Original Institution the French Officers became life members, 
and by the Amended Institution regular members, without matriculation on the 
Rolls of either. They applied not for admission to the Society, but for its '' Order." 
which signified in the then current diction, its Eagle and Ribbon. Thus, Viscomte 
de Noailles, a violent Jacobin, and presumably the ancestor of the Viscomte rie 
Noailles, who as one of the French representatives, applied to the General Meeting 
of 1887 " for the reconstitution of the French branch Society of the Cincinnati," 
urged Gen'l Washington April 24, 1790, for the favor of " the order " of the Society 
for the French Officers under his (the General's) command, and that those who 
served under Rochambeau. and those of l.auzun's Legion be permitted to bear 
the Order. 

Alexander W. Johnson, Sec'y-Gen'l. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc, vol VI, 
p. 48. 



63 

On the breasts of the most distinguished nobles of 
the French Army gleamed the Eagle of the Cincinnati 
at the side of the Grand Cross of the Military Order of 
St. Louis. In Europe the badge of the Order was con- 
stantly worn in public, but in this country, in accord- 
ance with " the sense " of the members of the Triennial 
Meeting of 1784, only on occasions commemorating the 
Society, or at the funeral of a deceased member . (Note §.) 

The numerous applications from abroad which pre- 
vious to the Amended Institution beseiged the Society 
in America with "claims" and " petitions,"' were re- 
turned with the information that " no claims will in 
" future be determined in the general meeting 
"the meeting of the Society in France being now dis- 
" tinctly considered in all respects as of the same au- 
thority as the State Societies. (Note 1 1.) 

A conclusion quite at variance with that of the 
General Meeting of 1887, is borne on the record of the 
General Meeting of 1863. (Note 12.) " The Committee 
" on the descendants of French Officers who served in 
" the Army of the Revolution now asking to be admitted 
" members of the Society made a verbal report. On 
" motion of Col. Sever the subject was indefinitely 
" postponed." The appeal to the General Meeting in 
America by the descendants of the French Officers, 
who having served- in the Army of the Revolution, 
were eligible as regular members, is instinct with a 
knowledge that the defunct Society in France was 
incapable of resuscitation, strangely in contrast with 
the ignorance of the descendants of the French Officers 
who had served in the Army of Rochambeau, that the 
Society they asked to be revived, had been placed 
beyond reach of resurrection by the extinction of the 
Amended Institution, on which its life depended. 

Note §. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc. Supra, p. 115. 

Note 11. Minutes General Meeting, 1S87, pp. 19-20. The archives of the Gen- 
eral Meeting are understood to be replete with a correspondence with the piincipal 
characters of the time in this country and in France. The members of the Society 
are as ignorant of it, as they were of the history of the Society till the publication 
of its minutes. They are entitled to this knowledge; and should see that a com- 
mittee be charged with the examination of the correspondence and other papers, 
with a view to their publication. 

Note 12. Minutes General Meeting, 1863, p. 166. 



6 4 

The transfusion of Cincinnati membership through 
the State Societies of America, by their inter-State 
migratory members, denotes them in their unity " the 
one Society of the Cincinnati," to the exclusion of an 
assumed Society in France. 

The consideration by "the Society" of the French 
genltemen as members, was its grateful gratuity of 
generous compliment to invaluable auxiliaries. The 
constituent Convention having made the control of the 
membership of the Society, the supreme prerogative 
of the State Societies, to impute to its members as a 
Society the exercise forthwith, of a power by them as a 
Convention but a moment before conferred exclusively 
on another, were to convict the Founders of flagrant 
self-stultification . 

This sequence of enumerated instances was effect- 
ively summarized and definitievly affirmed by the 
General Meeting, when in i860, at the written request 
of the Comte Maurice du Pare '' to be received a 
'' member, in right of his uncle the Comte du Pare 
" Coatrescar, one of the French Officers of the rank of 
" Colonel, whom the Society considered as members," 
five states in Triennial Meeting " Resolved — That 
" a respectful amswer be made by the Secretary- 
" General to M. du Pare, stating that the applicant is 
" not according to the Institution of the Society, 
"entitled to membership." (Note §.) 

Decisive however, as are the facts, and imperative 
the circumstances which expose the chimera of a Society 
of the Cincinnati in France, disquisition must cease 
and discussion end, in the presence of the mandate 
of the Institution which, in the words: "From the 
" State lists the Secretary-General must make out at 
"the first General Meeting, a complete list of the whole 
"Society," inexorably precludes a French Society from 
the components of the Cincinnati, and forbids to the 
French Officers the right of regular membership. 
(Note 13.) 

But to defective authority has been summoned ex- 
traneous aid. What the Institution denies the General 
Meeting affirms. The mistake of recognizing a Society 
of the Cincinnati in France by the General Meeting of 
1887, has been enforced by an effort to convert it into 
a State Society. (Note 14.) The conversion, if harmless 
as the act of a scribe, when officially approved, assumes 
the guise of a precedent. Hut precedents, though of 

Note S- Minutes General Meeting, 1S60. p. 154. 

Note 13. The revival of a Society that never existed, entered upon the Journal 
of the General Meeting tarnishes its fair escutcheon and should be rescinded. 
Note 14. Proceedings General Meeting, 1887, p. 17, 1890, p. 62. 1893, pp. 109,142. 



65 

avail in the absence of written Constitutions, are of 
none when opposed to charter rights. Nugatory there- 
fore when in conflict with the authority of the Institu- 
tion, the proceedings of the General Meeting never- 
theless thwart the effort. 

On the ioth of May, and previous to the adoption 
of the Amended Institution, letters were read in the 
General Meeting of 1784 from Brig. -General Armand, 
from Major L'Enfant and from other French Officers 
original members of the Society (Note 15), requesting 
that a representation be given them in the Meeting. 
The letters having been, on the 14th referred to a Com- 
mittee of three corresponding with three of the Com- 
mittee who reported the Amended Institution, and with 
two of the Committee "who reported the Circular to the 
States; and these Committees having reported concur- 
rently on the 15th, unquestionably the reply bore the 
answer to their request, signified by a Meeting in France 
recently authorized by the Amended Institution with 
representation coordinate with that of the State Soci- 
eties in America, — as was evidently intended by the 
order of the Meeting when the letter of General Ar- 
mand was read, that it lie on the table till the report 
of the Committee to whom the report of " the Com- 
" mittee of revision of the Institution is committed, 
"shall be received." (Note 16.) While exposing the 
heresy of identifying a Meeting in France with a 
Society of one of the States in America, the request 
establishes that not even a French Society was under- 
stood by the French Officers who were original mem- 
bers of the Society, to be authorized by the Original 
Institution. 

That a State Society in France was contemplated 
by the Founders, or recognized by the Institution, is 
an error. The State Societies are native to the 
States of the Union. Their duties to the unfortunate 
of their members, practicable to them, are simply im- 
possible to a Society in France. A sketch of its con- 
sequences is not destitute of alarm. Within its pre- 
rogative, foreigners admitted and Americans expelled. 

Note 15. Sargent's Journal. Penna. Hist'l Soc, Memoirs, Vol, p. 98. 
Minutes General Meeting, 1784, p. 11. 

Note 16. Minutes General Meeting, 17S4, p. n. 



66 

would doubtless be embraced. Not only would its 
representation impress the councils of the General 
Meeting, but its constitutional negative would effect a 
Gallic control. The Institution of American Fathers 
would fall under European sway; and the halls of the 
Society, garnished with the Coronets of a titled nobility, 
would resound to the roll call of Comtes, Viscomtes 
and Marquises, radiant with the heraldic blazon of 
armorial ensigns. 

X. The Circular of the Rhode Island 
Society. 

It was not till long after its date and distribution, 
that I was honored with a copy of the Circular Letter 
of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantations, issued from the 
State House at Providence, June 13, 1893. Though 
attested by the hand of its Assistant Secretary, its 
utterance unmistakably is the voice of its Secretary. 
It is trusted therefore, that where no slight is intended, 
no affront will be felt, if regardless of the hand, the 
Society be respectfully recognized by its voice. 

The mistakes of the Secretary are many. The 
correction apposite to each will be effectively facilitated 
by a recurrence to the facts whose misconception con- 
stitutes the source nearly of them all. 

On the 4th of May, 1784, the General Meeting 
first convened at the City Hall in Philadelphia. 
Its proceedings thence at its various adjourned ses- 
sions, were under the Original Institution, by whose 
direction they had assembled, until the 13th of the 
month, when they avowedly discarded the Institution 
under which they had been acting, and agreed that 
the Amended Institution which they had adopted, 
should be " the Institution by which the Cincinnati shall 
in future be governed." From that date their proceed- 
ings to the year 1 800 conformed to that agreement 
when its repudiation by the State Societies constrained 
its official recantation in the recorded declaration " that 



$7 

" the Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati re- 
" mained as it was originally proposed and adopted by 
" the Officers of the American Army at their Canton- 
" ment on the banks of the Hudson River in 1783." 

From the 19th of June, 1783, General Washington 
by request officiated as President, to the 4th day of 
May, 1784, when by similar request, he presided over 
the first General Meeting ; nor was it till the 15th of the 
month that he was formally elected President-General 
under the Amended Institution. Though to the 13th 
of May, 1784, he acted officially under the Original 
Institution, from that time through the term of his life 
in 1799, all his official acts are referable directly to the 
Amended Institution, whose adoption he urged, and on 
which his acceptance of the Presidency depended. 

The affiliated members of the Society, cither regular, 
honorary, or for life, are accurately styled members. 
As such, till recently, they have indiscriminately been 
certified by the Diplomas of the Society ; and as such 
have they been indiscriminately appointed to the com- 
mon duties of all. 

Neither time nor space suffices for a prolonged dis- 
cussion of the faults and fallacies with which the Cir- 
cular of the Rhode Island Society abounds. Sundry 
of them nevertheless, are entitled to notice. 

The statement that the Institution was adopted 
either "May 10th, 1783," or "May 10-13, 1783," is 
erroneous. The record reads : " The proposals being 
" fully considered paragraph by paragraph, and the 
" amendments agreed to," a committee was named " to 
"prepare a copy (of the Proposals and Amendments) 
" to be laid before this assembly at their next meeting 
" to be holden at Major-General Baron de Steuben's 
'' quarters on Tuesday, May Ijih inst." At that Meet- 
ing " the copy " of the Proposals modified in accord- 
ance with "the amendments previously, agreed to," 
was laid before the assembly, and was accepted by them 
as " the plan for establishing a Society." 

It is a rule familiar to those conversant with the 
Law of Public Assemblies, that the vote in favor of an 



68 

amendment offered to a proposition, is but an agree- 
ment that the proposition thus amended instead of its 
original form, shall be the question to be considered, 
and which if affirmed, constitutes the passage of the 
proposition as amended. 

The Institution conceived by Gen'l Knox, April 15, 
1783, having been by him submitted to the General 
Officers of the American Army, and to the officers who 
represented " the several regiments of the (State) lines " 
to whom it had been previously " communicated " ; and 
the amendments proposed thereto, after full considera- 
tion, having been " agreed to," a committee was ap- 
pointed to "prepare" a copy thereof with the Amend- 
ments incorporated, for the consideration of the As- 
sembly at its next meeting at General Steuben's quar- 
ters, where the Institution as amended was ADOPTED 
on the 13th oe May, 1783. (Note §.) 

The Baron von Steuben as presiding officer of the 
Constituent Convention, reconvened the Convention on 
June 19th, 1783, and not as stated " the general meet- 
ing" which was not organized till a year afterwards on 
the 4th of May, 1 784. It was not " the general meeting " 
but " the Convention for establishing the Society of the 
"Cincinnati" which "at the request of its President." 
assembled on the 19th of June, 1783 ; and which 
having "accomplished" the principal objects of its 
appointment, its monbers dissolved "the same." It is 
self evident that " the General Meeting " of the Society, 
has no power to alter or amend the Institution which 
created it. The misstatement therefore, that the body 
reconvened by its President-General Steuben, June 19th, 
1783, was the "general meeting" is not only exposed 
by the immediately ensuing words of the Secretary, 
" That this meeting is particularly noticeable, because it 
" altered and amended the Institution as adopted May 
" 10th, 17S3," but is contradicted by the record that de- 
clares it " a Meeting of the General Officers and the 
" gentlemen delegated by the respective regiments AS 
"A Convention for establishing the Society of the 
" Cincinnati held by request of the President." 

Note §. See Knapp's Life of the Baron von Steuben, pp. 555-556. 



6 9 

The " New Public Building" to which the Secretary 
refers as the place of assembly of the Constituent 
Convention, was the building at New Windsor on 
Hudson's River designated "the Temple." "The 
Temple " having been struck by lightning a few days 
previous to the 19th of June, 1783 (Note 1), it was 
impossible that Gen'l Steuben could have reconvened 
the Convention on that day at " the New Public Build- 
ing." (Note 2.) 

It is erroneously alleged that "the Institution thus 
"established provided that it should be subscribed to 
" by the General Officers, and by the Officers who had 
"been delegated to represent the several corps of the 
"Continental Army." It is not a provision of the 
Institution, but a direction of " the Society " subse- 
quent to the adoption of the " aforegoing Institution." 

The effort is fruitless to supersede the paramount 
authority of the Organic Law, with the appearance 
among its subscribers of names not entitled to its 
franchise and unadapted to its exactions. Whether to 
comrades in arms, or to whatever other consideration 
this breach of the Institution is due, it is of as little 
effect, as is the admission by State Societies of appli- 
cants to the Roll of regular membership in succession 
of honorary members; as ineffectual to annul it, as 
have been its violations by the General Meeting; and 
as absurd as would be a contention that the infraction 
of a law is its practical recission. (Note 3.) 

The reasoning is erroneous which, in the names of 
two officers of the " French Corps of Engineers " sub- 
Note 1. Winthrop Sergent. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc. Vol VI, p. 66. 

Note 2. A Monument has been erected on Temple Hill, New Windsor, on 
Hudson's River, on a Tablet of which an inscription furnished by tne New York 
Society of the Cincinnati records that "On this site the Society of the Cincinnati 
"was born May 10, 1783." On that day, and at that place the Institution of the 
Cincinnati was considered and prepared. On the following 13th of May, 1783, it 
was adopted at M ajor-General Baron von Steuben's quarters. It were as well to 
refer nativity to conception or gestation, as to designate the place where the con- 
sideration of the Institution of the Cincinnati proceeded, the place where the 
Society was bokn. 

Note 3. On Thursday, May 13th 1784, the report of the Committee on the 
alterations and amendments of the Institution being under consideration, the Gen- 
eral Meeting affirmed the officers of the individual State troops to be parties to the 
Amende 1 Institution, nothwithstanding that part of the first clause of the second 
paragraph, which limited the right to officers of the Army and Navy of the United 
States. (Sargent's Journal. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc. Vol. VI., p. 104. Min- 
utes General Meeting, 1784, p. 12.) But the restriction by the Original Institution 
of the members of the Society to the officers of the American Army, constituted 
of the regiments of the respective State lines, to the exclusion of the officers of 
the individual States, has never been altered or released. 



70 

scribed to the Original Institution, among those of offi- 
cers of the American Army, suggests the inference that 
officers of the French Army were recognized as regular 
members of the Society. That foreign officers "con- 
sidered by "the Society" as life members, were per- 
mitted to sign among the regular members of the 
Society, is the only significance which attaches to 
the signatures of all members alike. 

The record asseverates that the Institution was 
established by the representative " officers of the re- 
spective lines of the several States" of which "the 
" American Army " was composed, to the confusion of 
the dogma that " Therefore the Society of the Cincin- 
" nati was not established by the Continental lines of 
"the States;" and in verification of the fact that it 
tons thus established, 

Surely size is not the measure of representation ; 
but if so, the American Officers who in numbers, sub- 
sequently ratified its acts, sufficiently authenticate it. 
Therefore, if " in the formation of the Society of the 
" Cincinnati " " * * out of the thirteen State lines 
" of troops on the Continental establishment," instead 
of "four,'" but one had "assisted," its representative 
action would have been obligatory on all, especially 
when ratified by all. 

If it is true that "State Societies of the Cincinnati 
" had nothing to do with the organization of the Gen- 
" eral Society," the converse is equally true that the 
General Meeting had nothing to do with the organiza- 
tion of the State Societies. They both within the 
casus Foederis, or terms of compact, were synchronous 
creations of " the officers of the American Army " of 
" the several State lines," with specific rights conferred 
on both, but none reserved to either. In neither, 
anterior to its creation, as in the States of the Union 
prior to their Confederacy, did rights inhere, but in 
both, their inception was connate with the Societies that 
claim them. It may therefore be thought derogatory 



7i 

to a State Society, with jurisdiction of " the principles " 
of the Institution joint and coordinate with that of 
the General Meeting, to proffer itself, a subordinate 
" branch " of the Society. 

It may or may not be true that " there is no analogy 
" between the organization of the government of the 
" United States under the Constitution, and the organi- 
" zation of the General Society under the Institution ; " 
but between the organization of the government of the 
United States under the Articles of Confederation of 
1778, and the Institution of the Cincinnati Society of 
1783, the analogy is strong and binding. 

The Secretary, when attributing to " the (General) 
meeting " the sole jurisdiction of the principles of the 
Society, apparently regards as of little importance the 
fact that the power is jointly and indissolubly blended 
with that of " the meetings " of the State Societies ; 
and that measures to promote them must invariably 
be joint. 

The office claimed for the General Meeting " to 
" SUPERVISE the several branches or State Societies," is 
a definite claim of the office of a superintendent to look 
into the conduct of others, with power only to see that 
order is preserved ; and to report delinquency, without 
the power of correction. But if otherwise, and as 
contended, an office of sole executive power of approval 
and reversal, under the grant of a power to adopt " the 
"best measures that shall conduce to the general 
" intendment of the Society " expressed in its joint 
jurisdiction with the State Societies, — the proposition 
that one of two joint depositaries of a power, may 
subject its coparcener to its sole control, requires an 
ability to maintain, more vigorous even than the dial- 
ectics summoned to its support ; or if admitted, would 
reduce the Institution to a glaring contradiction in 
terms. 

The first "General Meeting" was ordered by the 
Society on the 13th of Ma)', 1783, immediately after 
the adoption of the Institution, when the Society forth- 
with adjourned sine die. Certainly, it was not then 



72 

thought by the Founders that their work was unfin- 
ished. No evidence is yet discovered, in contradiction 
of the completeness of the work of the Convention 
asserted by its words " That the principal object of 
" its appointment being thus accomplished," besides 
the Secretary's statement, that it "was contemplated 
"and intended to recast the Institution in the general 
"meeting of 1784, so as to incorporate the resolves of 
"June 19, 1783." Though these resolves were adopted 
as stated, " under the necessity of some temporary 
" arrangement," a sense of their permanent sufficiency 
was impressed upon the appeal made by the members of 
the Convention " to the candor of their Constituents," 
to make allowance for the "measure" — an appeal 
answered by the ratification of "the measure" by 
every State Society subsequently organized. But 
independently of these considerations, the assumption 
that it was contemplated and intended to " recast the 
" Institution in the meeting of 1784 so as to incorporate 
"the resolves of June 19th, 1783," adopted under 
" some temporary arrangement," is refuted by the 
declaration of the Meeting itself in its Circular to the 
State Societies (Note *) that " the alterations and 
"amendments" agreed to and thought material were 
" That the hereditary succession should be abolished ; 
" that all interference with political subjects should be 
" done away ; and that the funds siiould be placed 
" under the immediate cognizance of the several 
" legislatures who should also be requested to grant 
" Charters for more effectually carrying our humane 
" designs into execution ; " it is resisted by the " in- 
" expressible pleasure " of the General Meeting of 
1790, conveyed by its Circular to the State Societies 
(Note f) " to find that the unreasonable and illiberal 
" clamor which at one moment had been excited 
" against our institution has totally subsided ; " it is 
rejected in their letter to the Senior officers and others 
of the Cincinnati in France, — " Our decision was in- 
" fluenced by a conviction that something contained in 

Note *. Minutes General Meeting. 1784, p. 17. 
Note t. Minutes General Meeting, 1790. p. 45. 



73 

" our original system, might eventually be productive 
"of consequences which we had not foreseen, as well 
" as by the current of sentiments which appears to pre- 
" vail among our fellow citizens " (against Primogeni- 
ture) ; (Note *) and it is contradicted by Gen'l Wash- 
ington who, when opening the business of the Meeting, 
directed its attention to the " exceptionable parts " of 
the Institution that summoned them together, and 
" that required alteration in their very essence," viz. — 
"the hereditary part— interference with politics — 
" honorary members — increase of funds from dona- 
"tions." (Note 4.) 

The official action of the Constituent Convention 
on the 19th of June, 1783, was confined first, to a 
Resolution of acknowledgement to his Excellency the 
Chevalier de la Luzerne " of the honor done to the 
Society by his becoming a member thereof." Secondly, 
to a Resolution substituting for the " medal of gold " 
"the Eagle," as "the Order of the Society; "and, Thirdly, 
to a Resolution requesting his Excellency the Com- 
mander-in-Chief to officiate as President-General of the 
Society until the first General Meeting to be held in May, 
1784; and appointing and requesting Major-General 
McDougall, as Treasurer-General, and General Knox, as 
Secretary-General, "to officiate in like manner." While 
the first of these acts — in need of no recasting — derides 
codification; and the second, as a rescript of the Con- 
stituent Convention exceeds the power of the General 
Meeting either to " codify " " remodel " or " recast ; " the 
request by the third, of a President-General, a Treasurer- 
General, and a Secretary-General to officiate as officers 
of the General Meeting, until the time of its organiza- 
tion in the succeeding May, denotes unmistakably " the 
" necessity of some temporary arrangement previous to 
"the first Meeting of the General Society," to have 

Note *. See Letter, p. 96-97. 

Note 4 Washington "proposed as the most exceptionable parts and that 
"required alteration in their very essence the following viz. — the hereditary part 
" — interference with politics — honorary members — increase of funds from dona- 
"tions." If not for connection with distinguished Foreigners, he would have 
proposed to abolish the order altogether. But considering that connection, "if 
" a middle course could be adopted, which he doubted to be possible, and on full 
"investigation it should appear so, he was determined at all events to withdraw 
" his name from amongst us."— Sargent's Journal. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc, 
Vol. VI. pp. 81, 82. See also James Fairlie to Benj. Walker in Note 5 on p. 53 — 
Knapp's Life of the Baron von Steuben, p. 567. 



74 

been understood by the Convention to be the single 
necessity of supplying temporarily with officers, a body 
whose organization was appointed for the future. That 
the " necessity of some temporary arrangement " re- 
ferred to this appointment of ad interim officers, is 
corroborated by the opinions subsequently of Commen- 
tators (Note *). 

When General Washington, the officiating Pres- 
ident of the meeting of 1784, opened its proceedings 
with an expression of the opposition of Virginia and 
of other States to the right of primogeniture, and with 
a proposal of radical alterations in the Institution, the 
first order of business was a roll-call of the States 
present, for a report of their attitude towards the So- 
ciety, when it appeared that in all, save New York and 
Georgia, public opinion was substantially adverse to it 
(Note f). As it is impossible that any business could 
have preceded the first order of busiiicss transacted, the 
allegation of the Secretary is gratuitous, that " when 
" the General Meeting began, however, to remodel or 
" codify the Institution, so as to make it exact in 
" detail, and thus more clearly express the intent of 
" the Founders * * * , General Washington pro- 
" posed organic a/terations and amendments, changing 
"the character of the Institution, etc." 

Neither is it strictly true that the general meeting 
of 1784 " was brought with reluctance to acquiesce in 
the proposals " of Gen'l " Washington to effect organic 

Note*. "Under its (the Institution) regulations, the first General Meeting 
" was not to be held until May, 1784, and a meeting of persons properly author- 
" ized, was therefore held on June 19, 1783, to choose temporary officers." (Me- 
moirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc , vol. VI, pp. 65-66.) 

Note t. "General Washington, President-General, and General Knox, 
"Treasurer, begged leave to resign their offices. The President was then re- 
" quested to resume his seat, as a temporary appointment for the whole business 
•' of this General Meeting : and Major Turner was desired to attend to the duty as 
" Secretary— after which we resolved ourselves into a committee of the whole 
•' Colonel Ramsay in the Chair, and the Institution was read agreeably to the 
••general resolution. The President then arose— expressed the opposition of the 
" Mate of Virginia and other States — observed that it had become violent and 
" formidable, and called for serious consideration — desired of the members of the 
"several States to declare the ideas which prevailed in their countries with regard 
" to our Institution, and the various manners which they had pursued to obtain 
" this knowledge * * (Roll call of States) * * The President-General arose 
" and acknowledged the information from all the States — endeavored to prove the 
" disagreeable consequences which would result to the members of the Cincinnati 
"from preserving the Institution in its present form— illustrated the force and 
"strength of opposition to it in a variety of examples, supported by his own 
"knowledge, and information from confidential friends— proposed as the most 
" exceptionable parts and that required alteration in their very essence the folio w- 
"ing, viz. : — the hereditary part — interference with politics — honorary members — 
" increase of funds from donations," etc. 

Gov'r Sargent's Journal. Memoirs. Penna. Hist'l Soc, Vol. VI, pp. 78-79-81- 
82-83. Minutes General Meeting 1784, pp. 6-7. 



75 

" alterations and amendments" in the Institution. The 
Meeting assembled beneath the fury of a popular tem- 
pest raging against the Society. Gen '1 Knox wrote 
Gen'l Washington February 21, 1784, "The idea is it 
" (the Cincinnati Society) has been erected by a for- 
" eign influence to change our government " 
" The Hereditary principle is obnoxious." (Note f.) 
The pressure against the Society forms no inconsiderable 
page in the annals of the time. The opinions of both 
Washington and Lafayette were unfavorable. A hostile 
Congress threatened its extinction. Both this country 
and France reverberated with the peal of the storm. 
It beat upon the closed doors of the Meeting, and 
fell upon its members in alarm. Their first order of 
business was a roll call of the States, upon which it 
appeared that public opinion in all, except New York, 
and Georgia (Rhode Island not being then represented) 
was opposed to the principle of primogeniture. (Note \.) 
Under a precipitation of unexampled menace and appre- 
hension notoriously was it, that the first General Meeting 
of 1784 abandoned the principle of primogeniture, and 
agreed to " be governed " by an emasculated Institution. 
The General Meeting of May 15, 1784, did not 
as alleged " cause to be signed in open meeting by 
" President-General Washington and transmitted by 
"him to the several State Societies and to the Society 
" in France " the Circular Letter alluded to by the 
Secretary ; nor did General Washington " on behalf of 
the general meeting" appeal to "the several State 
Societies and the Society in France, for the ratification " 
of " the altered and amended Institution of 1784" and 
recommend its "adoption." No Circular was addressed 
to a French Society. The only Circular letter ap- 
proved, was addressed to the State Societies a/one, and 
was ordered to them alone for their ratification of the 
amendments and alterations proposed to the Institution. 
On the 17th of May "a draft of a letter to the Senior 
Land and Naval Officers and others, members of the 
Cincinnati in France, reported by the Committee who 

Note t. Sargent's Journal. Memoirs. Penna. Hist'l Soc, Vol. VI.. p. 72. 
Note %. Sargent's Journal, Supra, pp. 82, 83. 



on the 15th had reported the Circular to the State 
Societies, was read and approved, and a transcript thereof 
ordered " to be signed and transmitted by the President." 
Both the minutes of the meeting and the Journal 
of Gov'r Sargent bear this record. (Note §.) The letter 
however, omitted in the minutes, appears in the Journal. 
That the Circular communicating the reasons of the 
meeting of 1784 for the amendments and alterations of 
the Institution, for " the ratification " of which they 
appealed to the State Societies, and whose "adoption " 
by them they recommended, was addressed to them 
alone, and that but a copy thereof was transmitted to 
the Meeting in France "FOR THEIR INFORMATION," 
accompanied with a copy of the Amended Institution, 
the letter discovers in the following words :• — " From 
" the General Meeting in Philadelphia on the first 
"Monday in May, 1784: To the Senior Land and 
" Naval Officers, and others, members of the Cin- 
" cinnati in France, — Gentlemen : We, delegates of 
" the Cincinnati, having judged it expedient to make 
" several material alterations and amendments in 
" our Institution, and having thought it our duty to 
" communicate the reasons upon which we have acted 
" in a Circular addressed to the State Societies, do now 
" transmit FOR YOUR INFORMATION a transcript of that 
" letter, together with a copy of the Institution as re- 
" vised and amended." (Note 5.) 

We have the authority of the Secretary-General at 
page 109 of "The Proceedings" of 1893 of the General 
Meeting, that the Count D'Estaing was the President 
of " the French State Society of the Cincinnati " — a 
distinction appropriate in an assembly of Honorary 
members of the Cincinnati, to an Admiral of the French 
Navy, himself an honorary member of the Society ; 
but anomalous and quite improbable in a Society of its 
regular members including among them the chief of 
them all — the Marquis de la Fayette. 

Note 5. .Minutes General Meeting, 17S4, pp 15, 16, 21. Sargent's Journal. 
Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc, Vol. VI, pp. 105, in. 112. 

Notes. Gov. Sargent's Journal. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc. Vol. VI, pp. 
105, in, 112. 

See Appendix B for letter, p. 96. 



77 

The words of General Washington, the President- 
General, cited from his communication of May ij, 1784, 
to the Comte de Barras, " The Institution as NOW 
a molded and published" ; and the words cited from his 
letter of June 2, 178+, to the Marquis de Chastellux 
referring to the Circular letter sent by him to the Count 
d'Estaing, which "he expected would be submitted to 
" the members of the Cincinnati in France," furnish in 
their dates additional evidence that from the 13th day 
of May, 1784, the time from which it was agreed that 
the Amended Institution should govern the Cincinnati, 
not only all the proceedings of the General Meeting till 
May 7th, 1800, but all the official action of General 
Washington during his life its President-General, was 
under and by virtue of its authority and direction ; and 
that during that time, every reference made to a Society 
in France, was to a Society of an assumed existence. 

The officers of the American Army combined into 
"one Society of Friends" who "denominated them- 
selves" and their eldest male representatives in succes- 
sion forever, " The Society of the Cincinnati ;" and their 
registered aggregate in their respective States are " The 
Society." The State lists of the members, the Institu- 
tion declares to be "a complete list of THE whole OF 
" THE SOCIETY." They form the State Societies, which 
in turn are represented every three years in a General 
Meeting of vicarious power, and of intermittent dura- 
tion. It is a misconception that the Cincinnati Society 
is represented exclusively by " the General Meetings." 
Before "the General Meetings" were, "the Society" was. 
Immediately upon the adoption of the Institution in 1783, 
the Founders proceeded as "The Society;" and when 
they appointed the time for " the first general meeting* 
of delegates from State Societies not yet in existence, 
they designated the first Monday in May, 1784, as the 
day of its birth. Its members are " the Society," organ- 
ized under two forms ; the one the State Societies, and 
the other the General Meeting — the first primary, in 
structure of the members themselves, and the last 
secondary, of derivative power from them. Each organ- 



78 

ization, in its designated form, represents the Society of 
the Cincinnati — the General Meeting, in the sole super- 
vision of its general interests, and the State Societies 
in their joint jurisdiction with the General Meeting, of 
its fundamental principles. 

The Officers of the American Army, represented by 
The Societies of the States, and not " The Meeting of 
the General Society" the Institution pronounces " The 
General Society of the Cincinnati." 

The following paragraphs of the Institution define 
in their ordinal sequence the two different organic 
bodies of the Society. 

First. — " To perpetuate therefore the remembrance 
" of this vast event {the establishment of free, independ- 
" cut and sovereign states) as the friendships which 
"have been formed, etc. * * * the Officers of the 
" American Army do hereby in the most solemn manner 
" associate, constitute and combine themselves into one 
" Society of Friends, to endure as long as they shall 
" endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and in 
" failure thereof, the collateral branches, who may be 
"judged worthy of becoming its supporters and mem- 
" bers. 

" The Officers of the American Army, having gener- 
ally been taken from the citizens of America, possess 
" high veneration for the character of that illustrious 
" Roman, LUCIUS OuiNTlUS ClNCINNATUS; and being 
"resolved to follow his example by returning to their 
" citizenship, they think they may with propriety de- 
" nominate themselves the Society of the Cincinnati." 

Second, and before the creation of " The General 
Meeting." — "The General Society will, for the sake of 
" frequent communications, be divided into State 
"Societies, and these again into such districts as shall 
"be directed by the State Society." 

Third. — " The Meeting of the General Society shall 
" consist of its officers and a representation from each 
" State Society, in number not exceeding five, whose 
"expenses shall be borne by their respective State 
" Societies." 



79 

Fourth. — " In the General Meeting the President, 
" Vice-President, Secretary, Assistant-Secretary, Treas- 
urer, and Assistant-Treasurer-General, shall be chosen 
"to serve until the next meeting." 

In but two instances prescribing the time of its 
annual meeting, and appointing the use of its probable 
donations, is the Meeting of the General Society referred 
to by the Institution as the General Society — the " Meet- 
ing of the General Society" in its six applications, and 
the " General Society " in its two, interchangeably used by 
the Founders to designate the one body of the mem- 
bers of the State Societies, as " The General Society of 
the Cincinnati." Thus, doubtless, originated the ambi- 
guity of the terms, and their consequent confusion in 
both cursory and technical phrases. The words, how- 
ever, which reflect the sense and express the meaning 
of the Institution, are the dominant words of the two 
enacting paragraphs which institute the body, and 
direct it to be organized as " The Meeting of the General 
Society." 

When the Constituent Convention denominated 
" themselves the Society of the Cincinnati ; " and as " The 
Society," upon their adoption of the Institution May 13, 
1783, having prescribed directions for the organization 
of the State Societies, Resolved, " That the General Orfi- 
" cers, and the Officers delegated to represent the several 
" Corps of the American Army, subscribe to the Institu- 
" tion of the General Society for themselves and their con- 
" stituents, in the manner and form before prescribed," 
they unequivocally pronounced themselves The General 
Society; and distinguished it as "The Society," from 
the first " General Meeting" of delegates from the State 
Societies which they appointed to be held on the first 
Monday in May, 1784; and when, on the 19th day of June 
thereafter, the same body in Convention "Resolved, That 
" his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief be requested 
" to officiate as President-General until the first General 
" Meeting to be held in May next ;" and " under the 
" necessity of some temporary arrangement previous 



So 

" to the first Meeting of the General Society," ballottcd 
for and appointed a Treasurer-General and Secretary- 
General ad interim officers, they exercised the functions 
of " The General Society." 

Here, plainly, are two different bodies of two 
different names : the one, the body of American Officers 
the members of the Society of the Cincinnati residing 
in America, designated "The General Society ; " the 
other, a convocation of their representatives, designated 
" The Meeting of the General Society." 

The Officers of the American Army, having estab- 
lished themselves " The Society of the Cincinnati" 
became the General Society, or the Society at Large. 
For the sake of frequent communications they divided 
themselves into Societies of the States; and "to per- 
petuate the remembrance of the vast event " of the 
"free independent and sovereign States" of America, 
they constituted them, in the words of Chief Justice 
Marshall, " distinct Societies" and invested them with 
independent and sovereign powers. Possessing the 
attributes of Sovereignty, their necessary unity of 
action was provided for and secured in a subsequent 
paragraph. Hence, the appointment of a Meeting of 
their representatives, and its organization as " The 
Meeting of the General Society." i. e. of the State So- 
cieties, into which the General Society of the Officers 
of the American Army had been divided, with indepen- 
dent and sovereign powers. Though destitute of the 
plenary powers of the State Societies, yet as a meeting 
of their representatives the Meeting of the General 
Society was admitted to a joint care with them of the 
principles of the Society, and was charged with the 
supervision of its general interests, according to the 
" general intendment" of the Institution. 

While the feasibility of a division of the aggregate 
members of the Society of the Cincinnati into Societies 
of the States in -which they resided, affirms it ; the impos- 
sibility of a division of five representatives from each of 
the State Societies, into the Societies that delegated them 
exposes the absurdity of the contention. 



The analogy is not therefore illusory, between the 
members of the General Society, or Society at Large 
of the Cincinnati, in conjunctive legislation within their 
Sovereign State Societies, with their representatives in 
" the Meeting of the General Society" and the represen- 
tative body of the United States Government in co- 
operative legislation with its Senate of Sovereign 
States — the People, the Government in the one, and in 
the other, its members, the Society. Nor may the con- 
jecture be thought extravagant, that as the Society of 
the Cincinnati was inspired by the Articles of Confed- 
eration of 1778, so the Senate of the present Federal 
Constitution representing the States of the Union, is, 
however remotely, traceable to that feature of the 
Institution of the Cincinnati, which supplies in " The 
Meeting of the Genera/ Society" a representative body 
of the State Societies. (Note *.) 

The allegation is untrue that " the General Society " 
was denominated "the Society, ''and the societies in 
the several States, with their " prescribed officers, were 
designated ' State Meetings.' " " The Society'' is resolved 
by the Institution into two conjugate organizations — 
the General Meeting and the State Societies ; and the 
bodies, by the Secretary termed " Societies " which, with 
their prescribed, officers are averred to have been desig- 
nated "State Meetings," the Institution thoroughly 
furnishes as " State Societies," and uniformly nominates 
them such. (Note §.) 

The Journal of the General Meeting is a repertory 
so replete with conflicting and contradictory measures, 
and with expedients so various of meetings uniformly in 
want of a quorum, to avert danger either fancied or real, 
that it invalidates the allegation that " The General 
" Society, under the plenary power just mentioned, has 
" always exercised the right to construe and interpret 

Note *. The body of the Institution composed of delegates from the State 
Societies, instead of "The General Society," should be entitled either '<The 
General Meeting," or "The General Meeting of the Society," as named by the 
Founders, as pronounced by Chief Justice Marshall. (Marshall's Life of Washington 
pp. 26-301) and as uniformly designated by its " Proceedings " till 1S00 and occas- 
ionally thereafter. 

Note $. By the Amended Institution, however, they were termed "State 
Meetings,'' subservient as parts of " the Society " to its uses. 

Minutes General Meeting, pp. 13, 14. Amended Institution, Sees. 4, 5, 6, 10, 12. 



82 

" the Institution." (Note §.) But if true, its fallacy 
renders it unavailable as authority. Precedent strikes 
no root in the violation of Charter law. If otherwise, 
both the Annual and the Triennial meetings were 
abolished ; (Note 6), Primogeniture abrogated ; (Note 7) 
State Societies created in every State in the Union ; 
(Note 8) a Society of the Cincinnati established in 
France ; (Note 9) and the Society itself finally extin- 
guished by the interjection of an Amended Institution. 
(Note 10.) 

In support of "the plenary power" of the General 
Meeting " to construe and interpret " the original Insti- 
tution, the Secretary cites an entry affirmative of that 
power, in the minutes of the proceedings of the Meet- 
ing on May 13th, 1784, in the following words: — 
"Thus on May 13, 1784, a question having arisen 
" whether by a construction of the principles of the 
" Institution, such officers of the State troops as have 
" served three years can be admitted as members 
" — Resolved in the affirmative." An important part 
of the minutes of the General Meeting, is omitted from 
this extract, which deprives it of its attributed force. 
The entry reads, " Thursday May 13th — Met according 
" to adjournment — Proceeded on the order of the day, 
" a question having arisen,"' &c. On the preceding day 
(Wednesday the 12th of May) the Amended Insti- 
tution being considered by the meeting, it resolved 
" that the further consideration of the report of the 
" Committee of five be postponed until to-morrow." 
The " order of the day " therefore on the morrow (the 
13th of May), when proceeding with the discussion in 
which the question arose " whether officers in the State 
" Troops who had served three years, could be ad- 
Note § The General Meeting at its second triennial meeting in 1787, a majority 
of the thirteen State Societies being present, ruled that a representation of seven 
States should be required tor the transaction of business (Minutes Gen'l Meeting, 
1787, pp. 25-26 ) The failure of representation by any of the Societies, whether 
dormant, disorganized, or for whatever other cause remiss, did not abrogate this 
rule ; and the resolution of the triennial meeting of 1829, in which but five States 
were represented (Minutes Gen'l Meeting, 1829, p. 82). "That such State Societies 
and " Officers of the General Society, as convened in general meeting, should be 
" competent to transact business," consequently was unauthorized, and is in- 
effective and void 

Note 6. Minutes General Meeting, 1838, p. 87. 

Note 7. .Minutes General Meeting, 1784, p. 13— 1S56, p. 140. 

Note S Minutes General Meeting, 1829, p. 83. 

Note 9. Minutes General Meeting, 1887, P- 23- 

Note 10. Minutes General Meeting, 1784, p. 13. 



33 

" mitted as members," was the Amended Institution ; 
and its recorded decision consequently is but the affirm- 
ative of an opinion that such officers were admissible 
as members of the Cincinnati not under the Original 
Institution, but under the Amended Institution, out of 
which the question arose, and by which it was "agreed 
" that the Cincinnati shall in future be governed." 

The printed minutes of the Meeting are at this point 
fully confirmed by the more ample report in Governor 
Sargent's Journal as follows: — "Thursday, 13th May. 
" Met according to adjournment, and the order of the 
" day being called, the meeting proceeded to the con- 
" sideration of the Institution of the Society of the Ciu- 
" cinnati as altered and amended by paragraphs severally. 
" Confirmed the first, made the alterations in the second 
" paragraph as annexed in their order on page agree- 
" able to their reference." 

" l^f" The opinion of the meeting was taken in re- 
" gard to the admission of officers of any individual 
" State to be parties to the Institution of the Cincin- 
" nati, who had served in time and manner proposed ; 
" and in the affirmative, notwithstanding that part of 
" the first clause of the second paragraph which limits 
" the right to officers of the Army and Navy of the 
"United States collectively." (Note 11.) 

That the General Meeting is the sole judge of all 
measures adopted for the interest of the Society, and 
the sole arbiter of its fundamental principles is unten- 
able as opposed to its sole power simply of " super- 
vision " of the interests, and to its joint protectorate 
of the principles of the Society. 

The directions of a body within the limits of its 
jurisdiction, are not without authority; but when in 
the act of flagrant usurpation, they are brutum ful- 
men. The proceedings of the General Meeting, for 
fifteen years under a spurious Institution, should not 
be explored for examples to be followed, or precedents 
to be observed by the members of the Societies whose 
constitution it violated, and whose joint-tenancy it 

Note 11. Memoirs, Penna. Hist'l Soc, Vol. VI, p. 104. 



8 4 

usurped. Though in desultory acts at irregular inter- 
vals since 1800, having recognized the Institution of 
1783, which it discarded in 1784, yet its renewed 
usurpation in 1856, remains upon its minutes to the 
present day, a stigma of derelict duty. 

The invisibility of the connection claimed between 
the vicious legislation of the Continental Congress, 
and " the rule of 1854," which proffered the membership 
of the Society to a promiscuous progeny of the officers 
indiscriminately of the Army of the Revolution, ren- 
ders the argument advanced to its support, not only 
unreliable, but irrelevant. The adoption of that rule 
in 1856, was simply VOID. Neither General Knox who 
conceived, nor the officers of the American Army who 
framed the Institution of the Society, knew or antici- 
pated the subsequent oppression of the Congress, nor 
did they act with reference to it. The generous care 
however, with which they provided against exceptional 
contingencies, happily relieved of its consequences. 
It is not the causes, but their effects that are con- 
templated by the Institution as " the extraordinary 
cases " excepted from its restrictive terms of member- 
ship; and whether a faithless Congress, or physical or 
mental or other disability, was the cause, the failure of 
the officer to observe its directions was within both the 
letter and spirit of the exception ; and he was beyond 
them who, notwithstanding the depression of the Cur- 
rency and Congressional delinquency, escaped the pains 
of indigence. 

The seal being but the attestation of authority, and 
the diploma the instrument authenticated by it, those 
invested with the authority, are the custodians of each. 
The State Societies are empowered to admit members 
to the Society, and for cause to expel them. The 
proof of their authority over both seal and diploma 
therefore, is the proof of demonstration. 

The right of the General Meeting, or of either of the 
State Societies, within the scope of its separate or 
joint constitutional power, to impress the seal of its 



85 

authority upon its acts, is unquestionable; nor less 
true is it that the direction of the Institution that 
" a diploma on parchment " shall " be given to each 
" and every member of the Society," is mandatory only 
upon the State Societies on which, with the exclusive 
power of making the member, was charged the duty 
of authenticating the honor to its recipient. 

The signature of Gen'l Washington to diplomas and 
the use of the seal by the General Meeting, are entitled 
to little consideration, as the exercise of a discredited 
authority, assumed under an amended Institution, 
never acknowledged and ultimately repudiated as void. 

The Institution established the Eagle as the visible 
token by which a member of the Cincinnati " shall be 
"known and distinguished," and confided to the State 
Societies the power of making him such. It is delusive 
to separate the authority which confers the dignity, 
from the authority to distinguish it. 

That the State Societies accepted the agency of the 
General Meeting in "providing for diplomas and a die 
" and Eagle," furnishes no ground for the assertion of 
their voluntary subordination to its authority. Un- 
doubtedly to the General Meeting, as to others, may be, 
as has been entrusted the mechanism of the Insignia 
of the Society; but their distribution is a function 
solely of the State Societies. 

The order for Eagles by the general Meeting in May, 
1790, under the assumed authority of the Amended 
Institution, is not obligatory as a precedent on the 
Cincinnati under the Original Institution in 1893 ; and 
there having been no General Meeting between its 
authorization in the May of 1783 and its organization 
in the May of 1784, the " appropriation of certain funds 
" on October 15, 1783" " in the hands of the Treasurer 
" General" for the purpose of purchasing the diplomas 
" and dies for the medals of the Cincinnati by Gen'ls 
" McDougall, Knox and Huntington as a committee," 
was the unauthorized action of a self constituted com- 
mittee in the disbursement of funds devoted by the 



86 

Institution to " the further relief of the unfortunate." 
Doubtless, however, certain officers in behalf of the 
General Meeting, and the Society itself under the sup- 
posed authority of the Amended Institution, ordered 
Eagles from France on their own responsibility ; but it 
is equally undoubted that the business was that of the 
State Societies, which by cancelling the debt, ratified 
the transaction to the acquittal of their agents. 
(Note 12.) 

The omission of the Institution to provide funds 
for the General Meeting, except those restricted of use 
" to the further comfort of the unfortunate," and its 
consequent dependence for its expenses on the State 
Societies, (Note *) establish its appeals to the State 
Societies to have been "the requests" of an agent, to 
his principal for repayment of the sums disbursed in 
his behalf. 

Nor is it true that the General Meeting domin- 
ated the State Societies when "levying assessments" 
upon them. The report and the resolutions adopted 
by the General Meeting in 1787 under the Amended 
Institution, (Note 13), when stating the rule for 
apportioning to them their respective quotas of lia- 
bility for the sums advanced by the Marquis de la 
Fayette, and lost by Major L' Enfant in the purchase 
of Eagles, " presented " in France, and for those im- 
ported by him to America, and sold to the Society, and 
to its members for their accommodation, as well as for 
the sums paid by the General Meeting for diplomas to 
the foreign members, and for its expenses ; the resolu- 
tion of the General Meeting of 1790, (Note 14) urging 
" an immediate payment of their quotas in the manner 
" pointed out by the resolves of the General Meeting 
" of the 1 8th May, 1787;" and the resolution of the 
General Meeting of 1791, (Note 15) " that the Secretary 
" General address a letter to the several State Societies 
" which have not paid their quotas, assigned to them 

Note 12. Minutes General Meeting, 1787, p. 36, 1790, p. 43, 1791, p. 49. 

Note *. Institution and Minutes General Meeting, 1829, p. 82, et sequitiir. 

Note 13. Minutes General Meeting, 1787, pp. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. 

Note 14. Minutes General Meeting, 1790, p. 43. 

Note 15. Minutes General Meeting, 1791, p. 49. 



37 

" by the resolves of the General Meeting of May 18, 
" 1787, requesting that the amount be paid as soon as 
"possible," prove them, by the specification of their 
quotas and the urgent request that they be paid " as 
soon as possible," to have been an appeal to the State 
Societies to liquidate a debt incurred in their behalf. 

The irrefutable answer however to these citations 
is, that they are instances under the regime of the 
repudiated Amended Institution, irrelevant to the 
Original Institution which created the Society, and 
under which it exists and is now conducted. " The 
Society," under that regime, with neither funds nor 
Treasurer, — its expenses, inclusive of those of its offi- 
cers, were chargeable upon the funds of its " State 
meetings," which were obliged to defray them. (Note 
16.) To a Society without revenue, no fiscal was neces- 
sary, and its "request" of the State meetings for their 
"quotas" of a debt incurred for expenses, Eagles and 
Diplomas, was no more than its requisition upon them 
under a power to "distribute" their " surplus funds." 

It is equally untrue that the General Meeting arro- 
gated the right of " levying assessments" on the State 
Societies for its support. The minutes of the General 
Meeting of 1829 record the first resolution adopted on 
the subject under the Original Institution in the fol- 
lowing words : " Resolved that it be recommended to 
" the several State Societies to contribute on every suc- 
ceeding 4th of July, $20 each, towards the formation 
" of a fund for the purpose of paying the expenses of the 
"Society" (Note 17.) Thence intermittently at its 
ensuing meetings, various were the methods of defray- 
ing its expenses, inclusive even of their voluntary as- 
sumption in the meeting of 1857 by the State of Mass- 
achusetts, (Note 18) and in the meeting of 1863, by the 
State of New York, (Note 19.) An assessment being 
an apportionment to each of his share of a tax or duty 

Note 16. Amended Institution, Sees. 4, 5, 10, 12 Minutes General Meeting, 
1784, pp. 13, 14. 

Note 17. Minutes General Meeting, 1829, p. 82. 
Note 18 Minutes General Meeting, 1857, p. 148. 
Note 19. Minutes General Meeting, 1863, p. 168. 



previously laid by competent authority, the ultimate ex- 
pression of these desultory methods in the formula 
of an "assessment levied" upon the State Societies, 
detracts nothing from them as contributions solicited 
by the resolution of 1829, on which they all rest. 

Independently of these considerations, which repel 
the assumed financial predominance of the General 
Meeting, the direction of the Institution that the " one 
month's pay" of "each officer" delivered to its Treas- 
urer, "shall remain FOREVER to the use of the State 
Society ;" and the charter right of each State Society 
to dispose of its self acquired funds, under its power 
" to regulate everything respecting itself and the So- 
cieties of the Districts, consistent with the general 
" maxims of the Cincinnati," finally extinguish all claims 
indiscriminately, of a right or power in the General 
Meeting either to interfere with or to control its finances. 
(Note §.) 

Two events punctuate the history of the last cen- 
tury — a Government of the United States in 1778, and 
a Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. Perpetuity was 
an object of both. The Government, for its inadequacy 
to attain it, was by the popular edict deposed for another 
— for its adequacy, the Society, was by the popular 
clamor forced to succumb. The proposal of the Federal 
Constitution, was the result in the one case ; and in the 
other, the proposal of an Amended Institution. The 
adoption of the first, secured perpetuity to the Gov- 
ernment ; the rejection of the last, perpetuity to the 
Society. The event is the perpetuity of both. 

The Institution of the Fathers is the unalterable 
birth-right of the Children. As such, the matter in 
question is not what it should be, but what it is. If 
"a rope of sand," it has effected the perpetuity, which 
the hempen cord of an Amended Institution, was 
intended to strangle. 

Note §. Institution, and see p. 95. 



8 9 

XI. The General Meeting. 

The history of the General Meeting is fraught with 
lessons of weight. Its frequent intermittent intervals 
were the result of its errors in the past ; and the con- 
templation is far from agreeable, of the detriment 
obviously inherent in its various errors now. Their 
catalogue, though large, is increasing, and should be 
diminished. 

The simplicity and punctuality required, and till 
recently observed in the official record of its " Pro- 
ceedings" are obstructed with programmes, supple- 
mented with necrological compilations, and injected 
with personal opinions. 

The complaints of members admitted by one State 
Society with the privity of their rejection by another, 
are neglected ; and the insignia which decorated a 
Washington and a La Fayette, emblazon the breasts of 
pretenders. 

The sanction of its " Proceedings " is permitted to 
a French Society annex — like poor Tray's noisy ap- 
pendant, the more pitiable the more attention it 
attracts. 

The sanction of its " Proceedings " is permitted to 
the consequences of "a State Society in France" 
clothed with powers co-ordinate with those of the 
Societies of the States in America. 

It suffers to be obscured, the lines which distinguish 
a Society, founded by the officers and cemented 
by the blood of the Revolution, from the manifold 
organizations of epicene growth, founded in the deriva- 
tive claims of a promiscuous progeny of its rank and 
file. 

Its submersion in the influx of a miscellaneous 
posterity, of the right appointed by the Founders a 
testamentary legacy in perpetuity to the eldest heirs 
male of their bodies, recalls the fate of those wretched 
men who killed the heir, and cast him out of the 
vineyard. 



9 o 

In the solitary sphere of its assumed sole power, it 
fulminates ordinances, when uttered, exploded or ne- 
glected by dissentient State Societies. 

It has assumed the sole power of permitting the 
badge by which the members of the Society are enjoined 
to "be known and distinguished," to be appended to 
their persons in a manner at variance with that ordained 
by the Institution. — (Min. General Meeting, 1887, p. 23), 

The power conferred by the Institution exclusively 
on the State Societies of appointing honorary mem- 
bers of residents within their respective States, it has 
not only appropriated to itself, but perverted to a 
power of appointing not merely honorary members of 
indiscriminate locality at home, but foreign potentates 
of notability abroad. — (Proceedings General Meeting, 
1890, p. 75.) 

The fund provided by the Institution in 1783, "for 
" the further comfort of the unfortunate," if it has 
writ its annals true, has been suffered to be diverted 
from its constitutional purpose, and to be appropriated 
to the expenses, for which in i860 it confessed itself 
dependent on the contributions of the State Societies. 
(Minutes General Meeting, i860, p. 151.) 

On the breath of the State Societies the General 
Meeting depends. With them it is incorporate. The 
paramount power of the Institution is jointly theirs. 
In their unison, the Society endures forever. The ac- 
cretion of numbers is for the cognate Societies of the 
day. The Cincinnati describe a narrower round. They 
are the hereditary expression of the ancestral virtue : 
the line ordained for its descent. A Society, the coeval 
of American Independence, purely American, is theirs. 
In lineal succession, they have received from former 
generations a charter of the grace and providence of 
the Fathers. Still other generations are demanding 
its transmission to them, a Society unabated of dignity, 
of proportions unshorn, with honorable traditions, and 
a history without stain. 

Fraternally Yours, 
July 4, 1895. JOHN COCHRANE. 



9i 

Appendix A. 

(See pages 44-45-59.) 

Parallel between the Articles of Confederation and 
the Institution of the Cincinnati Society. 



Articlesof Confederation and 

Perpetual Union between 

the States. 



The Institution of the 
Cincinnati. 



July 9, 1778. 



"We the undersigned delegates 
"from the States affixed to our 
"names send greeting." 



Art. 1. "The style of this Con- 
" federation shall be the United 
" States of America. 



Art. hi. . " The said States 
" hereby severally enter into a. firm, 
"league of friendship with each 
" other." 

Art. xih. * * " And the Arti- 
" cles of this Confederation shall 
"be inviolably observed by every 
" State and the Union shall be per- 
"petual. 



May 13, 1783. 

" Proposals " for establishing the 
Society of the Cincinnati by Major- 
General Henry Knox, April 15, 

1783. 

" The proposals " for " establish- 
" ing a Society upon principles 
" therein mentioned, whose mem- 
" bers shall be the officers of the 
" American Army, having been 
" communicated to the several reg- 
iments of the respective (State) 
" lines, they appointed an officer 
"from each, who in conjunction 
"with the General Officers should 
" take the same into consideration. 
" The proposals being read and 
"the amendments agreed to," etc. 

" The officers of the American 
Army " (represented by an officer 
from the respective regiments of 
each State line) " denominate them- 
" selves the Society of the Cincin- 
"nati." 

" To perpetuate therefore as 
" well the remembrance of this vast 
" event " (the establishment oifree, 
independent and sovereign States) 
" as the mutual friendships which 
" have been formed. * * * " The 



9 2 



Art. iv. " The better to secure 
" and perpetuate mutual friendship 
''''and intercourse between the peo- 
" pie of the different States in the 
" Union, the free inhabitants in 
" these States * * * * shall be 
" entitled to all the privileges and 
" immunities of free citizens in 
" the several States ; and the peo- 
" pie of each State shall have free 
" ingress and regress to and from 
"any other State. 



Art. ii. Each State retains its 
sovereignty, freedom and indepen- 
dence, and every power, jurisdic- 
tion and right, which is not by 
this confederation expressly dele- 
gated to the United States in 
Congress assembled. 



" American officers do hereby in 
" the most solemn manner asso- 
" ciate, constitute and combine 
"themselves into one Society of 
" Friends to endure as long as they 
" shall endure, or any of their eld- 
" est male posterity and in failure 
" thereof, of the collateral branches, 
u etc." 

" The General Society will, for 
" the sake of frequent communica- 
" Hon, be divided into State So- 
" cieties and these again into such 
" districts as shall be directed by 
"the State Society." 

" The State Societies shall con- 
" sist of all the members resident 
" in each State respectively ; and 
''''any member removing from one 
" State to another, is to be considered 
" in all respects, as belonging to the 
Society of the State in which he 
" shall actually reside." 

" It having pleased the Supreme 
" Governor of the Universe in the 
" disposition of human affairs to 
"cause the separation of the Col- 
" onies of North America from 
"the domination of Great Britain, 
" and after a bloody conflict of 
" eight years, to establish them free, 
" independent and sovereign States 
"connected by alliances founded 
" on reciprocal advantages with 
" some of the greatest princes and 
"powers of the earth." 

All the officers of the American 
Army * * * * have the right of 
becoming parties to this Institu- 
tion ; providing they subscribe one 



93 



Art. iv. * * * If any person 
guilty of or charged with treason, 
felony or other high misdemeanor 
in any State shall flee from justice 
and be found in any of the United 
States, he shall upon demand of 
the Governor or executive power 
of the State from which he fled, 
be delivered up, and removed to 
the State having jurisdiction of 
the offense. 

Art. v. * * * * No State shall 
be represented in Congress by less 
than two, nor by more than seven 
members. * * * * 

* * In determining questions in 
the United States in Congress as- 
sembled each State shall have one 
vote. 

" For the more convenient 
"management of the general in- 
" terest of the United States dele- 
" gates shall be annually appointed 
" in such manner as each State 
" shall direct, to meet in Congress 
" on the first Monday in Novem- 
" ber in every year, with a power 
" reserved to each State to recall 
" its delegates or any of them at 
"any time within the year and to 
" send others in their stead for the 
" remainder of the year." 

* * * " Each State shall main- 
" tain its own delegates in any 
" meeting of the States, and while 
" they act as members of the com- 
" mittees of the States." " 



month's pay, and sign their names 
to the general rules in their respec- 
tive State Societies. 

The State Societies will regu- 
late everything respecting itself 
and the Societies of the Districts 
consistent with the general max- 
ims of the Cincinnati; judge of 
the qualifications of the members 
who may be proposed, and expel 
any member who by conduct in- 
consistent with a gentleman and a 
man of honor, or by an opposition 
to the interests of the community 
in general, or the Society in par- 
tic Hilar may render himself un- 
worthy to be continued a member. 

At each meeting (of the General 
Meeting and the Societies of the 
States and Districts) the principles 
of the Institution will be fully 
considered and the best measures 
to promote them adopted. 

" The General Society " (to 
meet) "on the first Monday in 
" May annually so long as they 
" shall deem it necessary, and 
" afterwards at least once in every 
" three years. 

"The Societies of the State" 
(to meet) "on the fourth day of 
"July annually, or oftener if they 
"shall find it expedient." 

The meeting of the General 
Society shall consist of its officers 
and a representation from each 
State Society, in number not ex- 
ceeding five, whose expenses shall 
be borne by their respective State 
Societies. 



94 



The circular letters which have 
been written by the respective 
State Societies to each other and 
their particular laws, shall be read 
and considered, and all measures 
concerted which may conduce to 
the general intendment of the So- 
ciety. 

Proposals for establishing a So- 
ciety upon principles therein men- 
tioned. 

The following principles shall 
be immutable and form the basis 
of the Society of the Cincinnati 
an incessant attention to preserve 
inviolate those exalted rights and 
liberties of human nature for 
which they have fought and with- 
out which the high rank of a ra- 
tional being is a curse instead of a 
blessing. 

An unalterable determination to 
promote and cherish between the 
respective States that Union and 
National honor so essentially nec- 
essary to their happiness and the 
future dignity of the American 
empire. 

To render permanent the cordial 
affection subsisting among the offi- 
cers. This spirit will dictate broth- 
erly kindness in all things and 
particularly extend to the most 
substantial acts of beneficence ac- 
cording to the ability of the So- 
ciety towards those officers and 
their families who may unfor- 
tunately be under the necessity of 
receiving it. 



95 



In order to form funds which 
may be respectable and assist the 
unfortunate, each officer shall de- 
liver to the Treasurer of the State 
Society one month's pay which 
shall remain forever to the use of 
the State Society ; the interest only 
of which, if necessary, to be appro- 
priated to the relief of the unfor- 
tunate. 



9 6 
Appendix B. 

(See pages, 59-60-73-76 ) 

The Journal from which the following minute of 
the proceedings of the general meeting of the Cincin- 
nati Society in 1784 is extracted, appears in the 
Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Vol. 
VI, p. 71, where it is prefaced with an account 
of its origin and discovery, by its editor, Winthrop 
Sargent, among the papers of its author, his progeni- 
tor. Governor Winthrop the writer of the Journal, 
was born in Massachusetts in 1753. A graduate from 
Harvard, he enlisted in the American Army then 
besieging Boston, and was appointed 8th Captain 
Lieutenant of Knox's regiment of Artillery, in which 
he served through the Revolutionary war, " in the 
" opinion of Washington, who thought highly of his 
"worth," "with great reputation," and where he re- 
ceived his Majority. In 1791 he was Adjutant 
General at St. Clair's defeat, with the rank of Colonel, 
and afterwards was made Governor of the Mississippi 
Territory. He died in 1820. He is represented to 
have partaken of the great interest felt by his brother 
officers in the affairs of the Cincinnati ; and from his 
intimacy with Knox, Putnam, Howe, Shaw and others, 
is supposed to have been cognizant of their designs. 
He was one of the delegates from Massachusetts to 
the first general meeting of the Society in May, 1784. 

That the proceedings of the meeting did not appear 
in the Public Press and that the essential parts of the 
Journal were written in cipher, indicate the reserve or 
the precaution of its members. Even its official min- 
utes, not till within a few years accessible to the public, 
are silent in many important particulars. Among them 
and not the least of importance, is the following letter 
of the meeting to " The Senior Land and Naval Offi- 
"cers and others members of the Cincinnati in France : " 

" From the general meeting held in Philadelphia on 
" the first Monday in May, 1784 To the Senior Land 
" and Naval Officers and others members of the Cincin- 



97 

" nati in France. Gentlemen — We, the delegates of 
" the Cincinnati, having judged it expedient to make 
" several material alterations and amendments in our 
" Institution, and having thought it our duty to com- 
" municate our reasons upon which we have acted in a 
" circular addressed to the State Societies, do now 
" transmit for your information a transcript of that 
" letter together with a copy of the Institution as re- 
" vised and corrected. Conscious of having done 
" what prudence and love of country dictated, we are 
" persuaded you will be satisfied with the propriety of 
" our conduct. Our decision was influenced by a convic- 
" tion that somethings contained in our original system 
" might eventually be productive of consequences 
" which we had not foreseen, as we'll as by the current 
" of sentiments which appeared to prevail among our 
" fellow citizens. Under these circumstances we deemed 
" it as no proof of magnanimity to persist in anything 
" which might possibly be erroneous, or to counteract 
" the opinion of the community, however founded." 

" Nor were we displeased to find the jealous eye of 
" Patriotism watching over those liberties which had 
" been established by our common exertions ; especially 
" as our countrymen appeared fully disposed to do jus- 
" tice to our intentions and to apprehend no evils but 
" such as might happen, in process of time, after we, 
" in whom they placed so much confidence, should 
" have quitted the stage of human action, and we flatter 
" ourselves we felt not less interested in guarding 
" against disastrous consequences in averting present 
" unfortunate political evils than the most zealous 
" of our compatriots. For us then it is enough 
" that our benevolent purposes of relieving the unfor- 
" tunate should not be frustrated ; that our Friendships 
" should be as immutable as they are sincere, and that 
" you have received the token of them with such tender 
" marks of sensibility. For you, gentlemen, let it be 
" sufficient that your merits and service are indelibly 
" impressed upon the hearts of a whole nation and 
" that your names and actions can never be lost in 
" oblivion." 



9 8 

" Cherishing such sentiments and reciprocating all 
" your affections, we pray you will have the goodness to 
" believe that, though nothing could have increased our 
" friendship, yet by your alacrity in associating with us 
" you have taken the most effectual measures for rivet- 
" ing more strongly those indissoluble ties. We have 
" the honor to be, etc., etc." 

XII. Report to the New York Society. 

At the Annual Meeting of the Society, held at 
Delmonico's, in the City of New York, on the fourth 
day of July, eighteen hundred and ninety, the follow- 
ing resolution was adopted, viz. : 

"Resolved, That a Committee, to consist of Wm. 
Linn Keese, Talbot Olyphant and John Cochrane, be 
and is hereby authorized and empowered to inquire 
what different or additional methods of procedure in 
the conduct and management of its affairs, would be 
advisable or expedient in the present condition and 
relations of the Society, either to serve its interests or 
enhance its eminence ; and to recommend what change, 
if any, is desirable, together with a plan thereof; and 
to report the same for the consideration of the Society 
at a meeting to which the present meeting shall be 
adjourned." 

The Committee so authorized and empowered, 
having had such resolution under consideration, do 
respectfully 

Report: 

The founders of the Cincinnati Society contemplated 
its perpetuation. The distinction they had won, they, 
not unreasonably, desired to transmit to their posterity. 
History, they were aware, would not refrain the record 
of their heroic achievements, nor stint the measure of 
their glory. Yet, something more they intended. Con- 
ciousness of merit was to each the source of a not 
unnatural hope that its memory would survive ; that in 



99 

the remoteness of time, the name of each would be 
embraced within the blazon of the Republic, arid the 
glory of each be reflected in the person of his descend- 
ant. Not ignorantly therefore, but with intuitive 
prescience, did the officers of the American army com- 
bine themselves into " one Society of Friends, to endure 
as long as they should endure, or any of their eldest 
male posterity." The means was not inadequate to 
the end. Having ordained perpetual succession through 
an indefeasible entail, the ancestral patriotism takes its 
course along the lines of remotest consanguinity, and 
the ancestral dignity is renewed forever in the person 
of the heir that is worthy. 

The annals of the Society are fraught with useful 
lessons. They disclose the sensitive jealousy of Re- 
publics, together with the certainty of its capitulation 
eventually, to the mollifying influences of time. They 
teach the power of patriotism and virtue in their con- 
tention with prejudice and passion ; and assure of the 
invariable triumph of truth, untrammeled in its struggle 
with error. A storm of denunciation assailed the infant 
Society. It was inimical to the State — at was a menace 
to Liberty. Statesmen and Patriots proclaimed it a 
monstrous birth. Many cowered — Hamilton paused — 
Heath timidly withdrew; and even Washington coun- 
selled the prudence of retreat. Though staggered and 
disconcerted, the Society sustained the shock, and 
survived it. Its action was variable and its meetings 
desultory. At but one, did Washington preside. A 
triennial quorum became impracticable. Diverse coun- 
sels induced a torpor, that pervaded and benumbed the 
general organization. Its principles, however were 
studiously maintained within the States, where its in- 
terests were diligently cherished. To their resolute 
and unalterable adherence to the Institution promul- 
gated on the banks of the Hudson, are we to attribute 
its ultimate permanence. Recurrent vicissitudes, how- 
ever, compelled resort to the expedients of self-preserva- 
tion. In some of the States the organization expired, 



100 

in others it became obsolete; while in all, various de- 
partures from its fundamental law were suffered, to 
prevent absolute extinction. Various were the methods 
proposed and the schemes devised to avert that immi- 
nent evil ; and many were they both original and here- 
ditary members, whose best energies were bent to the 
task. Of these, time has spared but meagre vestiges 
of the first ; but, of the last, there yet survives one 
whose efforts in behalf of the Society have ministered 
conspicuously to its stability, and diffused more widely 
its renown — our venerable and revered President, 
Hamilton Fish. 

It is difficult to overestimate the value of these 
labors. To be sure, they invaded the letter and im- 
pugned the spirit of the law. But the existence of the 
Society was at stake ; and it was better that the law 
should sleep for a day, than that the Society should 
perish. Nor, in the enjoyment of the vigor thus 
acquired, should its instruments be rejected. Though, 
by the license of necessity, admitted to membership, 
that very necessity is the warrant of their eligibility ; 
and though the urgency that created them has passed, 
its effect is respected in their unchallenged title to 
membership for life. 

But another day gilds the fortunes of the Republic, 
and another day has arisen on the fortunes of the 
Cincinnati. An age of reason has dispersed the fumes 
of infancy, and the experience of a century exploded 
the jealousy that lowered upon the " INSTITUTION." Its 
supporters are recognized among the notables of the 
land. Its members are numbered with jurists and 
statesmen. Its annals reach back to the events of the 
Revolution, for whose remembrance they strenuously 
plead. 

In this, our age of abounding wealth, with its acces- 
sories of voluptuousness, luxury and profusion — in this 
our stage of national life, with its irrepressible energies, 
its explosive impulses, its aspirations and ambitions — 
in this the circuit of our social life, sumptuous, sponta- 



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neous and extemporary, antecedents are something to 
the parvenu ; to the minion of pleasure, a pedigree 
something; and something to the sedate citizen, a 
lineage luminous with honorable deeds. Accordingly, 
in all its stations, the popular life is busied with an- 
tiquarian researches — with genealogical explorations ; 
and the ingenuity of Heraldry is invoked to connect 
the man of to-day with the man of yesterday. The 
Revolutionary sire is an imposing efficient in this wild 
quest for ancestors ; and the drummer boy of " Seventy- 
Six," is the prolific stock of a respectable and aspiring 
offspring. In this animated scene the Cincinnati 
Society stands conspicuously forth, the authentic 
arbiter of genealogical lines. Its foundations were 
laid in the blood whose source is the fountain of a 
perpetual honor. Its structure is strengthened by its 
hereditary partakers; while its records register the 
names, entitled by consanguinity, to the prerogative of 
ancestral renown. Such is the attitude of the Society 
of the Cincinnati among the multifarious organizations 
of the day. Rooted in the years of the Revolution, it 
emerged from the desolation of war, and arose with the 
rise of the country. It quailed at the breath of popular 
prejudice, but with its subsidence recovered. A century 
of honorable life is its lasting panegyric. To the public 
it is an enduring memento of the past, and to its mem- 
bers an escutcheon forever. 

But the new obligations implied by the renascence 
of the Society, are complicated with new duties in- 
curred. In the opinion of your Committee, it admits 
of no doubt that its interior management should cor- 
respond with its external relations, and that its modes 
of procedure should be accommodated to its changed 
conditions. Its earlier career does not appear to have 
been subjected to rigorous rules. Martial habits do not 
readily conform to the intricacies and restraints of parli- 
amentary law. and a ceremonious approach to what is 
within reach of customary methods, is usually felt to be 
irksome and useless. Stringent instructions to regulate 



102 

their action, obviously were not a necessity in an 
assembly of officers, met in a friendly way, to review 
the scenes, and rehearse the memories of their fields. 
The meetings of the Society were few. Nor was their 
frequency required, either to impress the public, or to 
deepen the impression. Its members constituted, 
mainly, the ingredients of social life. From themselves 
emerged the government they administered, and the 
laws they obeyed. The world of their day lay within 
their compass The force that shaped it was theirs. 
Of little use, therefore, either to remind or impress, 
could have been the meetings of a Society whose 
members were numbered the community in which 
they lived. Of as little consideration could have been 
its official distinctions. It is scarcely to be thought 
that the offices of an organization as illustrious as 
theirs, could have stirred the ambition of the officers of 
the " Patriot Army." A dignified and an august body 
were the founders of the Cincinnati. Their culminated 
fame they had grouped beneath the shelter of a Society 
consecrated to friendship, and they appointed it their 
memorial to latest generations. • 

All now how changed — the thousands of the fathers 
to the millions of their children- — the colonial area to 
an imperial domain — a loose confederacy to a com- 
pacted government ; and the pulse of a public life, 
then feeble and inarticulate, now beating with a giant's 
throb. The bustle of business, professional concus- 
sion, the debates of Senates, mingle with the tumult of 
the surging throng, and pour through all our gates a 
wild and deafening din. Competition provokes, strife 
distracts ; everything useful is the product of anything 
strong, and nothing weak survives the fierce combus- 
tion of metropolitan life. To this change is exposed 
the Society of the Cincinnati. Though the inherent 
glory of the founders is but derivative in their succes- 
sors, yet the Society is dependent on the support of 
its members, whose zeal, however fervid, can be effec- 
tive only when regulated by rule. An honorable 



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emulation has superseded indifference to official dis- 
tinction. If to encourage it were injurious, to suppress 
it is wrong ; for dissension will not fail to distract, 
where official selection is not fairly submitted to the 
general option. In the opinion of your Committee 
more frequent meetings are desirable. Facilities of 
intercourse are incitements to effort which, if adjusted 
by systematic counsels, will be symmetrical and capable. 
Nor should its promulgation be overlooked. In this 
age of rapid progress, the event unnoticed by the 
Press, fails to influence the public, and passes, pre- 
maturely, into the shadow of oblivion. 

The functions of this organzation embrace the State 
of New York. Within its confines its orders are 
paramount. Such is its prescriptive, and such its 
chartered right. Cosmopolitan tendencies, however, 
have domiciled in our city numerous irrelevant organi- 
zations. Denizens from other States, domesticated 
within its limits, invoke a foreign name, and enjoy an 
alien prestige. Even sectional pride, established here, 
uses our heavens for its thunder. Perhaps these irrup- 
tions should admonish the New York State Society of 
the Cincinnati, of a possible confusion of its local 
jurisdiction with the pervasive powers of the General 
Meeting. To each has the Institution appointed its 
separate sphere ; and though occasionally blended, yet 
oftener distinct, each in its department is exclusive 
and supreme. It should, therefore, be the care of this 
State Society to oppose to any disintegrating influ- 
ence, a timely corrective. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 710 939 2 



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